This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 

 

Alright, we’re into the book proper, now. Time for our final look at Gavilar’s final day, this time from the perspective of the man himself. It’s shocking to me how many secrets are left to reveal about the night in question after seeing so many different elements of the assassination and its participants. How much did Gavilar actually know, and what was he truly working toward? (The Sons of Honor still make very little sense to me, from the conflicting information we’ve gotten across these books.) What was the nature of his cooperation with the heralds, and why were so many of them present that night? What was up with his anti-light sphere?

Honestly, my opinion of Gavilar is not positive in hardly any respect, and I totally judge the Stormfather for almost choosing him. I suspect that this prologue is going to try to make him sympathetic, but I gotta say, that’s going to be an uphill battle.

Jumping into it, then:

 

Title: To Live

Yeah, love the irony. Off to a great start here.

Icons: Jes

Presumably a reference to the Stormfather and to Gavilar’s role as a leader, but Jezrien was also there that night and Szeth was using his blade, so there’s all sorts of reasons to put his icon at the top here.

 

The Words will grant immortality, huh? You wanna check your notes on that? I’mma go out on a limb and suggest that you may have misinterpreted something from your visions.

In fairness, if you see Aharietiam and then the Stormfather says he’s “seeking a new champion” it’s not a huge surprise that Gavilar would assume he’s talking about getting a new Herald rather than just a new Radiant. Arrogant in the extreme, but Gavilar isn’t really known for his humility.

Yes, Gavilar, throwing oaths at the wall to see if they stick is the right way to interact with a being of Honor. (eyeroll) Why did Stormfather bother with this piece of work? I have a hard time believing he’s the one who resonated most with Tanavast’s intent. 

Gavilar secretly learning to read to heretically pursue mysteries is a surprise, but it shouldn’t be. More surprising is that he latched onto Nohadon’s work. Well, maybe not. With a title that screams “How to be a King and conquer the world,” it’s no wonder he chose it as his handbook.

Gavilar casually tossing the honorblades around like junk in the vision is a great image, and a nice way to show his attitude. Interesting that Chana’s sword matches the artistic depiction with the bifurcated tuning fork blade.

Oh, so he’s refrained from asking any of the important clarifying questions because they are too irreverent and he’s worried they’ll disqualify him. Makes sense, even if the perpetuated misunderstandings feel ridiculously large to have lasted as long as they seem to have done.

 

Interesting. In order to discover the Words, he wants to find Urithiru, so he looks for an Oathgate, which takes him to the shattered plains. It is exactly backwards compared to what our protagonists have done: Kaladin and Dalinar have made their Words into a journey, taking them to all of those places, while to Gavilar the Words were the destination to which he could not find the path. A very neat and rather meta way to yet again present the fundamental premise of the series.

Oh, Stormfather outright says “you’re making too many assumptions. I never said you’d get to be a herald.” Not that it dissuades Gavilar from his belief.

Gavilar guesses and quotes a passage with essentially the same meaning as the first oath, but it doesn’t count. Good to know that just stumbling on the right ideal isn’t sufficient. I mean, we knew that, but I was kinda worried about how Gavilar was going about it.

 

Gavilar’s treatment of Dalinar is so, so scummy. We already saw how his marriage to Navani was abusive, but Dalinar’s devotion to his brother led me to think that there was some real affection and camaraderie there. Maybe there was, at one point, but this interaction makes me doubt that. Gavilar is a manipulator, first to last.

Interesting that Dalinar claims to feel a kinship with the parshendi. What is he sensing in these early days?

Gavilar is expecting his meeting with Restares, but is also in contact with Thaidakar? He continues to be more well informed than I expect. I keep thinking that his misunderstandings mean he’s missing big pieces of the picture and therefore that he’s some sort of patsy for the other figures of the cosmere, but he’s definitely trying to wheedle everything he can out of the people around him.

Ooo, the “Follow the Codes” line being a manipulation to get Dalinar drunk? Did not expect that at all. Dalinar’s guilt later is all the more tragic.

Did we know that Tearim was a member of the Sons of Honor? I don’t think so, but I could well have just forgotten. Ah, and Gavilar claims to have outgrown the Sons’ plans. This is helpful in that it clarifies Gavilar was explicitly working at cross purposes with them, presumably without their knowledge. It also says that the organization likely predated him by quite a time span.

Even back then Stormfather saw the potential in Dalinar. So why is he slumming about with Gavilar?

 

Ooo, Thaidakar is in the house. I didn’t think he’d been present. “Always another secret” indeed. I can’t wait to find out if he played a role in setting up the assassination.

Huh. So the Ghostbloods were after Kelek specifically for all this time. Why him, out of all the heralds?

Quote

“Our plans are already in motion. Though to be honest, I don’t know that we did much. That tide was coming regardless.”

My takeaway here is that the Ghostbloods were trying to make the new Desolation more predictable so they could use it for their purposes, not just that they were trying to help it along. 

I will say that speaking by Aon radio is a pretty spooky trick when the person you’re calling doesn’t know how it works. It does make sense now how Kel could get here when he’s bound to Scadrial: he didn’t, he just arranged for a video chat.

 

Interesting ordering of the names there: “Me, Ialai, Navani, and Torol.” Tell me, Gavilar, how close were you with Ialai, hm?

 

Quote

“He had plans to mitigate the length of his absence from this world.” 

How much does he actually know about the mechanics of the heralds and desolations? You know what, this actually makes a ton of sense now. Of course he’s encouraging people to find ways to kickstart the desolations. The more often those happen, the less time he has to spend on Braize in time out. To get the most out of immortality you just need to plunge the planet into constant warfare. Hardly even an inconvenience from an Alethi king’s perspective, especially one who despises other people.

 

Hm. Gavilar had met with Restares before, but had never spoken to Nale and didn’t know who he was. Does he even know for sure that Restares is Kelek?

“The newest incarnation of the Sons of Honor.” Okay, maybe I’m wrong. If Gavilar has known multiple iterations of the group, he’s presumably also partly behind it. My earlier conclusion about it predating him would be wrong.

Ah, nope. Restares is in charge of the Sons of Honor, and until this moment Gavilar hasn’t considered him an important individual. Weird. I thought for sure he was aware.

Important clarification! Restares founded the Sons of Honor to bring back the behaviors of the Knights Radiant, not their powers. He specifically does not want the powers to return because they could cause another Return. Obviously the group’s aims become confused thanks to Gavilar (and presumably others) but this starting point is a key bit of info.

Oh, I see. Kelek knows where Mishram is, and she’s Kelsier’s true target. Glad to know that, finally. We’ve had a whole lot of smoke and mirrors obscuring that goal. Seems like Kelek is also one to be easily intimidated into revealing the secret if they get a chance to question him.

Gavilar has a “secret scholar” from another world. This is obviously Zahel (unless there’s a sneaky bait and switch happening, which I don’t expect) but it’s a twist because I did not expect Gavilar to know of his nature, nor did I think Zahel would help with this project. He seems so placidly inactive in the background, supposedly running from his past. Is he actually working towards a goal here on Roshar? Is he yet another secret faction moving in the shadows?!

Hm. Gavilar believes Restares is pretending to be a herald, and thus that Nale is also pretending. 

Yes, I’ll bet Thaidakar is interested in how to transport herald-like beings between planets. Interesting that Gavilar is working on this project for both Restares and Kelsier without cottoning on to their purpose.

 

The connection to the Stormfather is strong and has progressed a long way if he’s forming avatars to speak to Gavilar willy nilly.

Quote

“Mishram tried to rise up and replace Odium”

You make it sound like this was an attempted usurpation. Restares’ phrasing was similar. Is this misleading, or was our previous understanding of the False Desolation incorrect? I had thought that she was trying to perpetuate Odium’s goals in a new way, not assume (part of) his mantle.

Gavilar got his new heating fabrial from “the scholar Rushur Kris”. Surely Khriss isn’t his secret scholar from another world. I don’t doubt that she’s here, but I still think he was referring to Zahel earlier. Checked the wording, and yes, the scholar is referred to as a man from another world. Not Khriss.

What do you mean “if that conniving Axindweth eluded his grasp…” I thought that if anyone was working hand-in-glove with Gavilar it would be the woman who delivered a voidspren to Venli. I guess not. More cross currents and competing interests. 

Yep, it’s Zahel, and Gavilar somehow knows him as Vasher. Not only that, but he’s created anti-Voidlight. Definite confirmation that the man is working on his own agenda here. That would have been enough on its own, but the fact that he hasn’t done anything with it in the last seven years? That Navani had to do an extended team-up episode with Raboniel to rediscover this thing that Vasher can apparently do without any of the tools Navani developed? Yeah, he’s got to have a good reason for keeping that to himself after he’d already shared it with Gavilar. Something is really screwy here.

 

Quote

“Who would have thought that Navani’s pet area of study would be so useful?”

Imagine that. A woman actually contributing something of value. Preposterous. Surely it’s a one-off and you lose nothing by cutting her out of your life.

 

Quote

 

“Give it to me. Now. Make me a Herald. I need it.”

“That was almost them.” 

 

Uhuh. I don’t buy that Gavilar was anywhere close to the Words. That is not the same Intent. Sorry Stormfather, you’ve got a broken Radiant-chooser.

 

Vargo! And Taravangian enters the stage. I would not have thought that Mr. T was only introduced to Gavilar in these final hours. Bizarre. I got the impression they’d interacted a whole lot more than that. Fascinating that he approached Gavilar by way of the Sons of Honor, introduced through Amaram, no less.

Taravangian, “a man of little consequence or aptitude.” I love how terrible Gavilar is at judging people. We obviously have the benefit of hindsight, but over and over again he refuses to see anyone’s abilities or strengths. Dalinar, Navani, Restares, the Stormfather himself, and now Taravangian. It’s a pattern of incredible hubris, and each new scene makes me more glad that Gavilar doesn’t survive to sunrise to poison the rest of the cast with his self-centered manipulations.

Amaram’s apparent desire to control the singers lends a smidgen of weight to his possession by Yelig-nar in Oathbringer. If we’d gotten this bit of the storyline ahead of time and seen it developed more, I wouldn’t have been nearly as annoyed at that plot element.

Amaram’s interest in Jasnah is, at least according to Gavilar, purely down to her status as heir (or rather future wife to the heir) to the throne. I can’t decide if that’s Gavilar projecting a thirst for power onto Meridas or if his advances were really as one dimensional as that.

Gavilar is expecting “The Everstorm. The Night of Sorrows.” Seems like the Stormfather has been quite a bit more forthcoming to him than to Dalinar.

Ooo, spooky. Those were the words of Vargo’s mother’s death rattle. Precogs are freaky, I tell you what. It’s becoming harder and harder to tease apart whose hand is moving the pieces. Cultivation, Moelach, Odium, Stormfather, all pushing over dominoes. 

 

Quote

“Heralds send that I may become the person I need to be to stop what is coming…”

Wow. That’s sure a phrase to inspire the future author of the Diagram…and the future Odium. Gavilar is leaving a legacy after all, even if few will attribute much of it to him.

 

And wonder of wonders, here we have an honest conversation between Gavilar and Stormfather. 

Stormfather doesn’t regret choosing Gavilar, but thinks he made mistakes in how he approached the potential champion. Possible, but I still think the initial choice was weird.

Gavilar freely admits to his plan to let the Desolations continue nonstop so he doesn’t have to spend any time on Braize. Who needs to honor what the Oathpact was for? Just use the effects for your own benefit. And he easily explains his Alethi glorification of war. No reason to stop one, ever.

Stormfather about to explain that it’s the Intent that’s missing, not the Words, but he’s interrupted by Szeth.

Wait, no. Not by Szeth. He’s somehow in pain. By the death of a Herald? Who?! How? I’m confused. My initial thought was that it was Taln’s breaking, but it wouldn’t take him literal years to reach Roshar again, and it wouldn’t be described as a death. Who could it have been? I thought we had confirmed sightings of all of the Heralds in the other books. If they died, they wouldn’t have been available for that without going to Braize and returning, which would have triggered the desolation. Unless by abandoning the Oathpact they are no longer bound?

Quote

“No. I am not ready … The Oathpact… No! They mustn’t see. They mustn’t know…”

What is the Stormfather hiding? Most likely would be he’s hiding from the Heralds that they are no longer bound, if that’s true. Or he could be hiding the weakness of the Oathpact from the Fused/Unmade? Such a frustratingly vague statement!

Quote

“There is so much you do not know. So much you assume. And the two never do meet. Like paths to opposing cities.”

I love the first part of that simile, about mistaken assumptions being so far off from the hidden truths. It’s a good line by itself, and feels like something Brandon put in aimed at us fans. But then he loses me on the path bit. I’m not sure the cartography makes sense the way he’s said that.

 

And suddenly the Stormfather shifts to his ALL CAPS voice to say he’s abandoning Gavilar to be assassinated. An interesting shift. You know, I don’t think Dalinar ever got the small italics version of a Stormfather conversation. It was ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME for him.

Gavilar is stunned that Restares is really a herald, that spren can lie, that there are things he doesn’t know.

Why would Thaidakar killing Gavilar be “too late.” Just because he warned Restares? There was nothing else that Gavilar was denying the Ghostbloods, as far as we know. 

I like that he recognizes the Honorblade Szeth uses.

Oh, he was trying to pass the sphere to the Stormfather, not to Szeth. That’s an unexpected misunderstanding. And Gavilar realizes how much he messed up, tries at the last moment to pass the Radiant candidacy to Dalinar. Stormfather is having none of it, though. “I’ll never trust your family again.”

 

Well. That was indeed a jam-packed prologue full of reveals. I was expecting more about Liss and Aesudan, rather than a prolonged conversation with the Stormfather. I was surprised at how uninformed Gavilar was in some areas while having access to a lot of important information. At the end of the day, though, I’m primarily glad to finally have a better grasp on some of the undercurrents driving the Sons of Honor and the Ghostbloods.