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

Chapter 47 (A Cage of Forced Spirits)

Epigraph: and now we’re citing the undertext. This really convinces me that despite the title we are dealing with a human author rather than a listener. New working theory: this is Navani’s research notes while working under Raboniel. The comment here about “answers are all that should matter” is her own doublespeak and misdirection while working under the enemy; the previous excerpts make a lot of sense in that context, describing that she’ll keep her notes in the same way she’s used to despite working with a very different collaborator in very different conditions than she ever has in the past. 

I’m much more comfortable and confident in this working theory, and expect it to hold up much better than my wild guesses in the previous chapters.

Skybreakers. Great. At least Dalinar took most of the Windrunners with him to help in the aerial combat. Honestly, it feels like we’ve seen too little of the Skybreakers so far, even though it’s only been since the end of Oathbringer that they decided to side with Odium. There hasn’t been opportunity to show them fighting, and they’ve been doing so for a year since the previous book, so it’s not really a failing in the story, but it sort of surprises me that it’s been this long before we see combat against them.

The Mink’s glee at being up in the air for good vantage over the battle is adorable. And also slightly concerning. I’m looking forward to seeing him and Dalinar work together.

Three hundred yards is a pretty high vantage point. It makes sense to be both high enough to see the whole battle and to keep out of range of weapons, but still. Very high.

It’s fun to see them being tactically minded, even if it’s all illusory through prose. 

Dieno is the Mink’s name. I don’t remember if we learned that before.

Huh. Escape boat waiting in Shadesmar. That is not a tactic I considered, but I really like it.

Hm, message from Navani is conspicuously missing the key information about an occupying force. I’m not surprised, just intrigued by what they will manage to communicate.

Glad to see that both the Mink and Dalinar sense something off. As for the concern about Azimir’s potential siege, I’d forgotten that they still hadn’t figured out the way to connect peripheral oathgates to each other. It was mentioned earlier in this book, even, but I’m going slowly enough that I forgot about that detail. For some reason I was thinking cities with oathgates were able to contact each other directly now.

Cord assigned herself as one of Dalinar’s bodyguards! Awesome!

Cord shooting Nale in the face mid-speech is great. Bit of reader catharsis, there.

Nale can see at a glance that Dalinar has no Blade. That’s a reminder of how far Heralds are beyond the current Radiants, and makes me quite concerned about Ishar. Ooo, yes. He manhandles Szeth, casually catches an arrow from a shardbow that was fired mere feet away. He’s out of their league by a long, long way.

The exchange between Jezrien and Nale is hugely fascinating. They were enemies before the oathpact formed, while Jezrien and Ishar were allies and came up with the scheme together. Lots of respect on both sides. 

Dalinar can see the Oathpact. Jezrien’s bond is the only one fully broken, while the others are simply “impotent.” ...except for Taln, whose bond still has full efficacy apparently. That’s interesting.

And now Dalinar is asking about reforging the Oathpact, something that readers have been speculating about for a while. I look forward to seeing what he and the Stormfather conclude, because that will doubtless give us new directions for our speculation.

Stormfather is surprised by how much Dalinar can do as a Bondsmith, which is odd because he’s bonded to Bondsmiths in the past. Most likely it is a result of Tanavast’s death and some of Honor’s power becoming available for Dalinar to wield--supported by Stormfather’s declaration that Dalinar “wields the power of gods.” But it’s also possibly related to his blessing from Cultivation.

With the resolution for Dalinar to explore his powers more, I can see why Brandon might have planned to make his book number 5 instead of 3, swapping with Szeth. I can only guess that there are a lot of awesome Bondsmith moments in book 5 that this book will give us the setup for.