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

Title: Ruled by Voices
Yup, this is a Szeth chapter. 

Icons: Chana
Destruction! Or maybe bravery? Or subversion of obedience, as Szeth is going against everything he learned from the Stone Shamans?

Epigraph: Oh, the travelers aren’t looking for something so esoteric as all that. They’re looking for Nohadon’s well-governed lands where the king actually cares about his people. That kind of mythical.

Szeth is still wearing white, and it’s something he chose for himself. Dalinar gave him the choice. Other skybreakers apparently always wear the local uniform for the police-equivalent, which strikes me as terribly presumptuous but I guess superpowered law-upholders get to claim membership in every force regardless. 

Szeth’s “pretending that it’s right” rather than just a tradition or routine, in order to prevent himself from needing opinions. That sounds terribly dangerous as a thought process, but also in line with someone on the path to becoming the sole arbiter of law.

They get to Shinovar by crossing the Misted Mountains, an apparent homage to Tolkein, and also a path where they don’t expect to be shot out of the sky by archers, something that the Shin have apparently taken to doing at the northern border.

Oddly, the noise of the wind drowned out the voices in his mind while he was flying at high speed. I wouldn’t have thought volume would be that sort of an issue. I don’t think it was the act of flying that was a distraction either, since he would have noticed that by now.

When did Szeth talk to Nale and get permission to use Division? Was that just at Thaylen Fields or have they had conversations since then? Szeth implies this happened at the time of his third ideal, which I’m pretty sure was Thaylen Fields. Weirdly hierarchical that the head of their order dictates when they can use their powers, especially since Szeth’s bonded spren has different opinions on when it will be appropriate and has denied Division to him so far. 

“Stonewalker plants” are the ones from eastern Roshar (i.e. the rest of the continent) that move to shelter from storms. Szeth is really happy to see normal sessile plants.

For someone feeling nostalgic, describing gentle rain as being “like a corpse that had already bled out” says very disturbing things about your relationship with your homeland, Szeth. You might want to ask some of those voices for a better way of thinking about the beauties of nature.

Hm, not only have the storms lost their fury by the time they reach Shinovar, all of the crem minerals have dropped out of the rain so you no longer get that kind of buildup.

Szeth is so happy to see moss and grass he attracts two whole gloryspren, and we’re a long way from the attraction of the Sibling. This is the real thing.

And Kal’s got confusionspren: streaks of violet. He obviously thinks the plants are sick and Szeth is having a breakdown for sad reasons. 

Szeth still doesn’t know his spren’s name. I suppose if the spren have been part of Nale’s skybreaker order for a thousand years they’d have bonded with a bunch of humans across multiple lifetimes, and it would become more like a job than an intimate partnership. Or maybe it’s to do with general highspren culture, about which we know little beyond their antipathy for honorspren.

And the highspren’s only contribution is “get over your stupid human emotions.” Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to like the skybreakers, or a spren who would look at Szeth and say “that’s the paragon of morality I want to support,” but this is not moving them up in my esteem. There’s a whole book left for humanizing moments and sympathy, but this is not a promising start.

Huh. Szeth thinks of his spren as a master, akin to Dalinar or previous holders of his oathstone. I’d expected to eventually find abusive relationships between humans and their bonded spren, but I thought they’d go the other direction.
The voices being triggered by shadows makes me think there’s something unmade going on here, but surely the highspren would have detected that in the past few years.

Szeth equates an unwillingness to hurt or kill with cowardice, and directly asks Kal if that’s what he’s become. A revealing bit of his worldview, and also a comprehensive lack of tact. Except that apparently he doesn’t comprehend why that would be an annoying thing to say. He’s got a very alien way of looking at everything, even after a year of attempted rehabilitation by Dalinar.

Kaladin’s opinions of the plants are kinda funny. “These must be hiding among all the normal plants. Oh wait, they can’t hide. What will happen when all the real plants retract and they’re left alone before the ravaging goat.” These immobile things can’t possibly be real plants, after all.