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

Title: Compromise
It’s a Navani chapter, so gotta be some negotiation about sprengineering with the Sibling.

Icons: Vev and Pali
Loving and Obedient, as motivators to compromise? Or maybe this is edgedancer listening and truthwatcher planning.

Epigraph: Oh, here’s a conclusion to the parable: let people leave if they wish (like dust that travels between borders). A sentiment that applies both to the itinerants looking for a better country (and about the find out the one they’re looking for doesn’t match their expectations) as much as to the king who just abdicated (and is going walkabout across the continent and multiple realms).
 It’s worth remembering that Arahietam, or however we spell that, was caused by people wanting to leave, and that some of those heralds are still trying to get out of Roshar. Raboniel was at least partially motivated by wanting to release her daughter. I’m all for saying “open borders and free passage for everyone,” but let’s be cognizant of how we’re extending that metaphor.

There’s obviously a plan here, but “aw, shucks, the assassin isn’t getting close to us,” is one of those internal thoughts that should make you re-examine what you’re doing. 

It worked though, at least partly. They know how many more ghostbloods are expected and their names, and have an even better view of the security measures. Radiant seems confident in taking down the assassin quickly and quietly, and I’m looking forward to seeing how she does that.

Okay, that’s clever. Manifesting your armor around your opponent as a trap isn’t exactly the most subtle way to go about things, but if nobody is watching then it can apparently be quite effective. That Shallan did a drawing ahead of time to make the helmet hold this woman’s mouth closed is a nice touch of planning.

I rather expected the armor spren working together and manifesting physically to set off the sand, but it appears that’s not the case. How does that compare to what the screamers detect? As I recall, they couldn’t even sense lightweavings, which the sand does.

The assassin did almost get a stab in before being encased, which isn’t a surprise. That they just tip her into a wheelbarrow and roll her away is funny to me. Not sure how easy it will be to get the mask off without giving her a chance to do something. Agents like this are bound to have all sorts of out-of-context investiture abilities that our protagonists don’t know how to guard against. Then again, dogpiling her with corporeal spren seems like a good way to block a lot of that.

Oh, yeah, Shallan definitely wouldn’t enjoy watching someone get strangled. I’m impressed that handing things off to Radiant for a couple minutes was all it took. Shallan from a year ago would have been a wreck from that reminder.

I like the internal chastisement to stop infantilizing Shin and off-worlders just because they have round eyes that make them look babyface to east Rosharans.
Shallan shows off her acting skills, and Gaz’s reaction shows that it’s a talent above and beyond most of the Unseen Court. You go, Shallan.

Actually, I’m even more impressed that Gaz and Darcira each apparently took out a ghostblood watchpost single-handed without raising any alarms. How many watchers at each post? I was imagining a team, but on reflection it’s probably just a pair or possibly a lone watcher, depending on how those posts are disguised. So it’s still good work, but not quite the spy movie fight scene I was imagining.

And back to Navani. This moment with her taking care of all the administrative items that her big important husband doesn’t…it’s very reminiscent of her flashback in Rhythm, where she was very much the queen of Alethkar for all the daily functions. Here she’s even more-so the queen of the tower, given her link to each mechanism that makes it function.

It’s good that Sebarial’s in charge of the logistics. He and Palona are eminently competent, and they’re thinking ahead to how to do things without Oathgates. A secluded mountain fortress isn’t really convenient when all your trade routes require teleportation through dubiously loyal portals. 

Did we know that Radiant soulcasters also stressed the gems they used as foci for their surgebinding? It makes sense, but I hadn’t thought about the focusing gems being a limiting resource for the non-fabrial form of soulcasting. I guess “more efficient and versatile” somehow became “no limits” in by brain, with no justification for that idea. 

Do we know anything about the lighteyed vs darkeyed demographics of the Alethi people? Three quarters of the current radiants were apparently darkeyed before bonding their spren, but I don’t know if that’s an over- or under-representation of the populace at large. I would have guessed that statistically the harder lives of darkeyes would result in the cracks in the soul that spren come along to fill, but life is hard everywhere, especially when your nation is constantly at war. And there’s no guarantee that the struggles of a lower class individual will be any more or less attractive to one of the ten nahel spren than those of someone of means. Until we get some sort of overview of the trends involved I’m going to have to just say I don’t know, other than the fact that radiants demonstrably come from all walks of life.

Well, that’s convenient. Navani can just command the irritationspren she attracts to go away. Her position gives her the privilege of hiding what she’s feeling, or even falsifying it by entertaining some spren of a mismatched emotion. All of them are constantly attracted to her, after all. I hope to see that leveraged at some point, or at least recognized by someone who wishes they could do the same.

Huh. There’s still rumors flying around about Sadeas’ death. Probably Ialai’s as well, being much more recent. I forget who knows the truth about either of those events. Who did Adolin tell besides Shallan? I honestly don’t recall.

I can’t help but smile at how irritated Navani is about being a Disney princess equivalent, surrounded at all times by her adoring spren friends.

The Sibling isn’t particularly concerned about whether Dalinar becomes Honor’s vessel, but they do warn against letting it awaken on its own. Without a mind to guide it, it will be far more inhuman than any of the spren, and correspondingly dangerous. And it’s potentially worse since Honor is sequestered in the spiritual realm, away from physicality, time, and all those things essential to our existence and perspective.

Quote

To separate the power from those who are attached tot he Physical Realm…that should frighten you. It is not so terrible a thing for part of me to despise you. But for the power of a god to? Dangerous. For all of us.

That does sound bad. Especially since I recently finished reading Defiant, the conclusion to the Skyward series, where Brandon explores the dangers of that kind of separation. The Delvers aren’t nearly so powerful as a Shard, but living in the nowhere (spiritual realm equivalent) did a serious number on their capacity for empathy with physical beings. That’s not something you want from any of the cosmere Shards, but Honor seems like a particularly judgmental aspect.

Rushu! Haven’t seen you in a while. She’s brilliant and there’s a whole crew of male ardents pursuing her. My money is on her being uninterested, not oblivious, but her act is good enough that I don’t know for sure. 

Ovens burning soulcast coal, huh? That mode of thought, of transmuting low-value waste products to high-energy, high-value materials is huge for engineering approaches to problems as much as for social approaches to scarcity and economics. I’m going to have to let Brandon abstract the results of that for us, because it’s hugely complicated and the exact limits will come down to author fiat. It’s a fascinating aspect of the magic system, though.

Interesting that the relative “efficiency” of the modern fabrials appears to be primarily one of scale and implementation rather than an inherent mode of the science. Navani’s fabrials are space heaters that work on-demand for the area that needs it, whereas the tower’s central heating requires a large boiler to be constantly ready to supply heat to any of the rooms that require warmth. I can see several ways for this to end in compromise.

Oh, that’s very neat. They created an aluminum plug in the central gem of the fabrial, which lets them exchange the trapped spren periodically. Now they’re farming and treating the spren like valuable draft animals, rather than harvesting them into perpetual slavery. It’s a model I can see working, though it’s as susceptible to abuse as any where the power dynamic relies on goodwill from the user. PETS (People for the Ethical Treatment of Spren) will have its work cut out for it.

Ooo, sweet. Your thoughts mold the spren, so treating them well and naming them makes them develop individual personalities and act more like pets. It’s a single-generation form of domestication, and means that ethical treatment directly rewards the domesticator by making the spren more efficient and long-lasting. Rushu plans to train them to enter the fabrials on command. 

And the Sibling gives permission verbally to the ardents along with Navani. That’s got to be a trip hearing the god of the tower speak to you and affirm your work.  Oh, and Rushu got Navani to swing an audience for her with the Sibling. Navani is using the opportunity to help Sibling care about individual humans (maybe–it’s a big ask).

“There will be ramifications.” Sounds like a safe bet, but also understatement to the consequences of Dalinar and Stormfather yelling at each other in ALL CAPS.

Unexpected. Rushu is curious about Sibling’s agender nature, and it sounds like a personal concern. She (they?) aren’t the person I would have expected to be the nonbinary representation for this book, but I can’t say I honestly thought about it after being somewhat negative about the way the singers appeared to be filling that role with their racial de-emphasis on gender. I don’t have strong opinions about this, just general awareness, so I’m not particularly invested in how Rushu tackles her identity and role in Alethi society. As an ardent she already has a leg up on finding a nonconformist space with less rigid expectations.