Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.

Chapter 16 (An Unknown Song)
Oh, hey. This is the first time seeing Navani’s chapter-header symbol. I like that shining gem. 
Incidentally, I also paged back through to look at the herald symbols gracing each chapter, and much like Oathbringer all of the chapters so far have 4 of a kind (in contrast to WoK in which usually there were two heralds per chapter). I’m not great at analyzing the heraldic attributes as relate to the chapters, especially since they are often broad enough that half the heralds could reasonably chosen for any given chapter, so I’ll probably not focus on it at all.

I also haven’t blogged about the notebook and folio pages that we’ve had so far. I did look over them at the same time I was looking at the herald portraits, and it may be worth adding my thoughts about them as well, but I’m going to wait until the next one shows up. 

Epigraph: Not much to say. I’m curious how closely the Fused manufacture techniques match up with what the humans have developed, but it’s not a huge point of interest for me. Especially since the council meeting included several Fused saying that the humans had surpassed them. I’m much more interested in the ancient-type fabrial. If I were to guess, though, I doubt we’ll see any reveals on that front during the events of this book. (There’s a decent chance that we did get some in Dawnshard, though, just going by the title, so I’ll keep an eye out when I get to that.)

Ooo voidlight inspection. To quote Mark Watney, “time to science the rust out of this!” 
Oh, hey, that makes sense. Voidlight glows in UV, which would absolutely look bizarre to people who’d never seen that before. There’s probably an additional magical effect to its appearance, but at least now I have a good mental image for what they’re seeing, AND an expectation that it at least somewhat conforms to the science aspect of realmatics.

I do wonder if there is anything to be said about Odium from the fact that his investiture manifests in a color on the edge or outside of the visible range. 

Oh, so Szeth finally went and retrieved the sphere with the captured voidspren. I’m not sure why his is still infused, though. It’s been 8 years.

“Assassin” That is a cold way to address him. Also, why is he in jail? That’s really stupid if they’re trying to keep him contained. Either he’s there because his code involves following Dalinar’s orders and was asked to stay there, or he requested it as a form of penance. Not sure I like either version.

Navani decided “not to worry about” the mysterious person who snuck a spanreed into her private vehicle and threatened her to stop making fabrials or else. Nothing could go wrong.

So the perfect gem containing Nergaoul is safely at the bottom of the ocean. The ocean constantly stirred up by supernatural hurricanes. Hurricanes that regularly blow house-sized boulders ahead of them and whip the ocean to a churning froth. Yes, that is definitely and completely out of reach and will absolutely not come back to bite you in a worse way than it did when it was passively inspiring armies to slaughter each other. Good problem solving.

Dozens of spheres to illuminate his small stone cell and banish all traces of shadow.
Hm. Szeth has requested tons of infused spheres. Is that to have stormlight for himself/Nightblood? Or is he still traumatized enough to request a shadowless room? 

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“He trusted his own murderer more than those who surrounded him.” 

A lot of people have (deservedly) bashed the Sons of Honor. This is as good an indictment of them as any. Not only were their goals abhorrent and counterproductive, their camaraderie had negative value and their scheming was just as cutthroat internally as externally.
And of course Navani takes that comment as directed at her personally. 

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“He was dying; he could barely force out his last words. I am not certain they are prophetic, as the voices of the dying sometimes are in my land. I followed them anyway.”

 

O.O Well then. First, on the worldbuilding front I really like this element that would give added weight to a person’s last words or final requests. Second, this is important. Shinovar is a long way from here and from Kharbranth or the Shattered Plains, places where so far we have seen the death rattles. Is this just further evidence that Moelach wanders and spreads the effect across different parts of Roshar at different times? Or is there a separate entity present in the western part of Roshar who also causes prophetic visions at the moment of death? 

If it is Moelach, then I have serious reservations about a culture that has based any significant portion of itself on information gathered from the Unmade. Obviously that’s a concern with the Diagram as well, but they’re already intentionally helping Odium. I’m more worried about the extent to which the Shin may have been unknowingly subverted.

I can’t tell if Navani’s nausea and revulsion is entirely due to Szeth or if she is also reacting to Nightblood’s “evil detection aura.”

Navani listing the various groups that are present at Urithiru, that she can see on the Cloudwalk--she calls out there being three different Makabaki local governments represented, and I realized we don’t know anything about the diversity of the various regions. So far, what little we know of most places is monolithic, or even just vignettes. That she mentions them in the same breath as seven Alethi high princes seems like a useful equivalence until we learn more. 

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Aimians, remnants of the humans who had escaped Aimia, the men with their beards bound in cords.

..and then she namedrops the Aimians. Human Aimians. I think this is the first indication we’ve had that there is a human culture with roots on those islands. So far all references have been to the Sleepless or the Siah.

Little Gavinor is an actual character! Who talks! With lots of exclamation points! Seriously, though, I’m glad that he’s getting some time with Grandma Navani. 

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Soldiers these days. She supposed with some of their commanders learning to read and some of their sisters joining the Radiants, life could get confusing.

It’s funny to me that Navani is weirded out by getting salutes rather than bows. It makes sense, if those are the norms, but she’s the Kholin matriarch. She’s queen mother, the wife of the Blackthorn, and she directs companies of artifabrians and other artificers on military campaigns. There are a lot of ways to show respect for that. 

It’s also notable that Dalinar is apparently a trend setter. He’s not the only man learning to read. What is the world coming to?

These barometer measurements are interesting to me, in that I’m led to challenge the assumption. Why would pressure fall before a storm on Roshar, when the meteorology behind a highstorm is entirely unlike any of the storms we have here? Would you not perhaps expect a compression of air as the supernatural storm approaches? I mean, it’s established in this scene that that is not the case, but it makes me remember yet again that we really don’t know how highstorms work, what is at the Origin, or why they circle the planet in the way that they do.

Confirmation that Szeth’s sphere has been glowing for 6+ years, along with a few interesting factoids: Voidlight drains more slowly from gems than Stormlight does; mined gems (at least some of them) have a more regular structure than gemhearts, allowing them to retain light longer.

They keep commenting on the way the light looks different from Voidlight. Is it just the effect of whatever spren was trapped inside, or is this actually imported investiture from another shardworld? If the latter, then whose is it? Probably not from Sel, so Aona and Skai are out. The description doesn’t match either aspect of Harmony. The others… we just don’t know. I will wait to speculate until we get another clue.

As a scientist, I kind of want a side story just following the scholars as they actually make the discoveries that Navani commissions them for. Hmm. A fanfic idea to keep in mind for later.

Oh. Well, Rlain’s comments on the sphere are pretty definitive. This is a non-Roshar investiture for sure:

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It feels painful. ...It has a song I’ve never heard, and it vibrates wrong against my soul.

I can’t decide if the pain is simply from an incompatibility with the listener forms, which have inherently grown with honor/cultivation, and been intentionally adapted for odium’s purposes. I’m leaning toward the other possibility, that it reflects the intent of the shard it came from, which would be...none of the ones we know. If we didn’t know what Ruin looked like already, I would posit that one, but it really doesn’t fit. Possibly Autonomy, but I’m going to bet on one of the ones that has been shattered previously, that we haven’t met yet.

Shallan, that “well-connected” pun was bad and you should feel bad. Also, it was a lot more honest than I would expect you to be in a one-off quip like that. “I keep finding pieces of myself lying around, forgotten” indeed.

Shallan and the Mink look like they will be a fun duo. Super spy shenanigans ahoy!

Adolin has… gold-trimmed boots. Three pairs of gold-trimmed boots. Good grief, man--I do love your fashion obsession, but this is getting a little excessive.

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That boy. He never leaned back in his chair or put his feet up when he was wearing ordinary shoes.

You do you, Adolin. Everyone is super impressed. Especially your mom, obviously. That’s what it means when she shakes her head like that while rolling her eyes.

Did Adolin just sass Dalinar? What did I miss during this timeskip? His wife is being quite the influence. 
Neat that they have chosen to use the singers’ own name for themselves, rather than the much more propaganda-friendly “voidbringers”. I’m impressed with that choice.