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

Chapter 29 (Cage Without Bars)
Epigraph: Sazed is looking for a “sword” (or perhaps a champion?) who can act for him when he by his nature cannot. Is this talking about Wax? I would imagine not, since one of the recent books--I think it was Bands--talked about Wax being his hand of Ruin, while someone else would be his hand of Preservation. I don’t think “both protect and kill” is talking about the same dilemma Kaladin faces. Then again, we’re still waiting for the conclusion to Era 2, and a lot could happen. Marasi seems to have turned down the job in the climax of Bands, so we’ll have to see.

Well, that’s the title right at the front “A ship was a cage without bars.”

Ua’pam is doing a “curious gesture” rubbing his knuckles. Is this related at all to Unkalaki cultural gestures, or is it purely a peakspren thing? It makes me think of Herdazians and sparkflickers, but that’s obviously a superficial association.

I love that Adolin and Veil have game nights. She knows all the gambling card games.

I also love Thaylen words. “Kdisln vintage” may sound like something you’d only say when drunk, but that’s actually the pronunciation you use when you’re sober. I bet the Thaylens start adding in vowels when they slur their words.

Why don’t we get a picture of Shallan in her cultivationspren disguise? I hope this is a repeat of the melting face from that time she got shot in the head in Kholinar. I don’t actually remember that noblewoman’s name, though. Have to go look that scene up later.

The statistical distribution of gemstone quality isn’t something I’d thought to consider before, certainly not as an ominous sign. Thanks, Jasnah. I always want more indications of conspiracy on your doomed little planet.

Sword katas with Maya! Adorable as always. I can’t help but see the parallel to Adolin’s best bro Kaladin who is back in the tower trying to revolutionize care of mental health patients. Adolin is over here in Shadesmar slowly proving to people and spren that the deadeyes aren’t as dead as they seem, and the best way to help them is to treat them like people.

This makes me wonder if awakening Maya is going to truly be a unique event or if doing so will open the path to (possibly many) more dead blades being revived. This could have a substantial impact on the numbers of allied spren available to oppose odium (or defect to him, I guess, given the Skybreakers example). The shortage of honorspren might end up being resolved in the long term not by recruiting the reluctant but by resurrecting the lost.

Lots of caravans come through this town, and humans aren’t unusual in them? How many worldhopping traders actually are there? This is starting to sound a lot more heavily traveled than I thought.

Hmmm. Veil isn’t good at using stormlight, to the point that she can’t easily heal a hangover? That’s a further separation of their abilities than I had expected to actually be shown in the text. I may have confirmation bias here, but I’m seeing a whole lot to support my theories about their split. 

What is Veil up to? I thought “have time alone” was talking about alone-with-Adolin, but she’s taking over from Shallan and sending Adolin on ahead, so that’s not it. Got to be sneaky spy stuff, though I can’t imagine what she has to do except maybe contact Mraize, and I thought she was supposed to wait until later in the journey to do that.

Yeah, Mraize phone call time. I wonder if he’ll be upset at her contacting him too soon or if this was expected and I just misinterpreted what he said when he gave her the radio.

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“I know him.”

The cube can talk? I have so many questions right now. This isn’t just Siri or Alexa, this is a self-aware device. Tell me more!

You know what would be funny? If instead of a spy, Mraize hired someone to move the radio around so that it looked like it had been tampered with. Nobody has been using it to contact him, they’re just gaslighting Shallan to feed her paranoia. I can totally see that as a possibility that Mraize would consider. It’s more likely he has a real spy, just because it’s hard to see him passing up the opportunity for more reports and information, but I’m putting the fake-spy idea at a solid 30% possibility right now.

How do you maintain a building constructed of manifested bricks and stones? Do you just have someone come by once a month to add new pieces to all of the holes that have opened up as the structure times out and reverts to beads? This doesn’t sound like it is actually cheaper or easier than importing physical materials. 

Hmm. The spren merchants are speaking Azish and Alethi. Is that the local lingua franca? Do they pick a Rosharan language and assume that worldhoppers have translation abilities? Are they just able to speak whatever the passing humans do? 

Regarding the ashspren, who gave rude gestures in Shallan’s drawing--do they do that to all humans? Is it just the Radiant-affiliated ones that they don’t like? The local Rosharans?

Fearsrpen look like multi-legged eels… I don’t think eel is the base I would start from to describe something with a bunch of legs. And passionspren have mustaches? Plural? That is very weird. I think I need a picture.

I think it’s very sweet that Adolin is jealous of the time that Veil (and presumably Radiant) are in control, like he’s competing with her alternate personas for Shallan’s time and attention. That’s not the relationship I would have predicted for the four of them at the end of Oathbringer.

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Unfortunately, this uniform’s pockets were sewn shut. The trousers looked better that way.

Adolin has officially let his fashion sense undermine his daily life. Adolin! You have fallen victim to the classic blunder of removing essential utility in pursuit of ephemeral esthetics! Do not give up your pockets! At least on Earth women can carry a purse or clutch. On Roshar, noblewomen have safepouches. You don’t get anything except maybe a saddlebag if you’re near your horse. Giving up your pockets is not worth it!

Maya is trying to help the other deadeyes! This is huge! She has so much more life now than she has had in the past, starting to display initiative.

New deadeyes. That’s bad. Especially since the fact they met one in the first town they entered means that statistically this is not a unique or rare event. Even taking into account the influx of population to Urithiru and the possibility that the Cryptic was following someone there, it’s very ominous.

When Kaladin almost killed Syl in Words of Radiance we seemed to get confirmation that simply betraying oaths is enough to turn a bonded spren into a deadeye. However, I suddenly start to see parallels between the slave-form parshmen and the deadeye spren. Is there an external force that is reinforcing the death of these spren? We still don’t know much about the Recreance. Could it be that the method of sealing away Ba-Ado-Mishram to lobotomize the listeners had side effects to directly affect nahel spren? It can’t be a direct side effect due to the Skybreakers persisting (and possibly others). My first thought was Darkness executing would-be Radiants, but those deaths really shouldn’t have created deadeyes according to what we know. I’m going to go ahead and guess that one of the Unmade has been tasked with enforcing death on bonded spren it encounters, with a correspondingly deleterious effect on their human. I realize though, that we have no evidence to support this so far.