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About this blog

I'm going to post my reactions and analysis of Rhythm of War chapter by chapter as I go through. Contains spoilers for RoW, obviously, and for the Cosmere in general as I'll probably be theory crafting as I go.

Entries in this blog

Chapter 38

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 38 (Rhythm of the Terrors)  Title: That can’t be good. I’m not sure whether the actual reference will be to something that the one attuning it is terrified of, or of them channeling terror against others. More importantly, I am wondering if there are Rosharan entities that have been given the title of Terrors, and how those might relate to the Unmade or other frighteningly formidable beings. Epigrap
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Chapter 37

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 37 (Silence from the Dead) Title: I presume this is to do with the library in the basement? Epigraph: Hoid is more scared of Rayse than Odium, and Sazed calls him out on it. That’s interesting. Full mobility in any direction, as long as I’m getting dragged around by my hand? Yeah, I’m going to go with “nope!” Thanks, Tomor, but I’ll pass. I do look forward to seeing whatever this changes into u
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Chapter 36

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 36 (The Price of Honor) Title: Adolin’s wound is gonna be their ticket into negotiations with the honorspren. Epigraph: Sazed seems to be responding as though Hoid’s advice in the previous epigraph were personally directed, which makes it more interesting. Shockspren clustering around Notum--we now have the confirmation that was lacking last chapter. Yes, emotion spren are drawn to other spren, no
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Shallan's Sketchbook - Part III

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Shallan’s Sketchbook Part III Honorspren (image here) Wow, that mustache really catches the eye. After that, the clothing is both impressive and expressive, along with their stances. Ben hit this one out of the park. Both of the featured spren are an odd combination of welcoming and confrontational with an ambiguous mismatch between their posture and their facial expressions. I am really not sure how to interp
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Chapter 35

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 35 (The Strength of a Soldier) Epigraph: no comment...oh, except that I’m now wondering if this advice to keep shard and vessel “separate in our minds” is general or targeted specifically at the Vessels themselves (since it was apparently given to Sazed) for the purpose of self knowledge and relationships with each other. Is it advice for handling the Shards and their interaction? Or is it just the munda
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Chapter 34

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 34 (A Flame Never Extinguished)  Epigraph: “Since we are all essentially infinite, he needs no more power.” That is certainly one way to view it, but it feels bizarre to me. Infinite doesn’t seem like the right word to describe shards, in almost any respect. I’d like to get Sazed to expand on what he means and on what infinite means to him (or what he thinks it means to Odium). They got Stump to hel
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Chapter 33

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 33 (Understanding)  Epigraph: We already knew Odium’s goal, but I think that was all from WoB and piecing together things from across the cosmere. Here we get it stated in plain text, even if couched in Sazed’s supposition. It feels like a lame reveal, but it’s good to have it out there for the less fanatical of fans. Kaladin realizing (i.e. internalizing) that advocating for someone and protecting
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Chapter 32

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 32 (Of Three Minds)  Epigraph: Yes, Sazed, we know you’re stuck. Thanks, Adolin. Now we have something about Zu to be suspicious of. As if there wasn't enough suspicion going around in this plot thread. She says she can shape stone, which makes sense for her being a Stoneward, but is the obsidian ground of Shadesmar “stone” enough for that to work? What about if someone wanted to soulcast an it
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Chapter 31

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 31 (Daughter of Traitors) Title: As a Venli chapter, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The listeners weren’t ever characterized as traitors, as far as I recall. Yes, they rejected the Fused and Unmade, but that hasn’t been treated as betrayal so far. Not to say it won’t be… The other possibility is that it’s talking about Timbre, since there was a mention of the spren betraying/abandoning the liste
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Chapter 30

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 30 (The Betrayal) Sorry to leave everyone hanging for *checks* five weeks. This is ridiculous that I’m taking such a long time to get through a Stormlight book. Doing these liveblog entries is enough of a barrier though that I don’t tend to read unless I have a sufficient chunk of time available and my wife is at work. (I’ve also been working on some writing this month, which has filled a few of the time
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Chapter 29

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
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Shallan's Sketchbook - Part II

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Cryptics (image here) Before anything else, I have to say how much I love the little sketch at the bottom of the page.”I’ve never seen a cryptic running. I expect they would look very silly.” Indeed, yes. I’m sure Ben had a great time drawing that one, and I like it as a moment of lighter-humored Shallan layered on top of her naturalist observations. Their hands being only obsidian or marble, black or white
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Chapter 28

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 28 (Heresies) Icons: Chana and Pailiah, representing obedience and learning, are appropriate to the title--which presumably means we’ll be dealing with the ardentia this chapter. Epigraph: “Other shards I cannot identify, and are hidden to me.” Does that mean that the foregoing portion of the letter is exhaustive of the list that Sazed has been able to contact? Or is he skipping some over? I’ll need
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Chapter 27

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 27 (Banners) Epigraph: How can there be “a wound upon the Spiritual Realm where Ambition, Mercy, and Odium clashed” anyway? The Spiritual Realm is supposed to be divorced from location and even time. How would a breach in the Spiritual Realm be localized to Threnody? Or maybe it’s just saying that the other two realms were damaged in such a way that the Spiritual Realm bled through? It doesn’t sound like
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Chapter 26

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 26 (A Little Espionage) Epigraph: Devotion and Dominion are dead, their power shattered. Yes, yes, news at 11.  Shallan surrounded by cryptics every time she breaks out the sketchpad :-) All the other Lightweavers must be jealous-- “No, I can be artistic too, I swear. Come back Pattern… no, not you, my Pattern. The one with the fractally, no, not you. Pattern! Stop ignoring me.” Hm, yeah, maybe
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Chapter 25

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 25 (Devotary of Mercy) Epigraph: Great Googly Moogly! More shard names? What inspired Brandon to give us this sudden windfall? Whimsy, Mercy, and Valor now, in addition to Invention from the previous chapter. Not much information about them beyond hints, though I really want to see what kind of magic system Whimsy inspires. (Maybe that’s the magic kite story that was mentioned in the State of the Sand
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Chapter 24

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers Chapter 24(Full of Awe)  Epigraph: Invention--that’s a new shard that I haven’t heard of before. It’s possible it popped up in some of the WoBs I missed in the past year, but I’m gonna guess this is the first mention. S/he is hiding or otherwise unreachable, which makes me think of the mystery shard that just ‘wants to hide and survive,” though that’s pretty tenuous. Endowment isn’t ignoring Harmony, which sounds
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Chapter 23

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 23 (Binding Wounds) Epigraph: Nothing to say. Once again a good depiction of depression in its various stages and forms. Also a nod to chronic pain as experienced by Mil.  Syl reading Kaladin’s book for him is cute.  Jasnah takes time to soulcast medicine? That’s awesome, and a level of specificity/precision I might not have expected of soulcasting. I can’t wait for someone to bring that a
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Chapter 22

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers Chapter 22 (No Use Talking) Epigraph: These letter segments are too short. It does sound like Sazed may be more open to helping than he seemed from the last correspondence. Alright, this has nothing to do with the chapter at hand, but I was thinking about how Mraize was bugging Shallan about getting the Ghostblood tattoo. She was rightly hesitant, and correctly pointed out that it probably wouldn’t stick. Bu
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Shallan's Sketchbook - Part I

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers Urithiru The first Urithiru sketch already featured in Oathbringer, but the scale of this place is insane. Very worthy of its mythic stature. I do like the cutaway sketches that give a sense of the internal space as well as how it would be used. I can really imagine those inward-facing balconies becoming a thriving neighborhood community. It’s interesting to me that the main atrium at least does not close off bet
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Navani's Notebook - Part I

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Okay, so first I want to say that the key I was using switched the L and R characters in the Alethi women’s script, which made this transliteration much more difficult to puzzle out until I’d realized the error.  It is interesting to see what sounds are used phonetically and which English spellings are directly transliterated (e.g. the C in “space” uses the K/C letter, while the one in “entrance” uses an S) b
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Chapter 21

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 21 (The Seething Knot) Epigraph: Oh, nope this is Sazed after all. Presumably a second letter, then. Has Hoid been contacting everyone again, or just the people he thinks are most likely to be sympathetic? Adolin is delightful. I love how he’s justifying his fashion obsession with an appeal to Alethi manliness. “Oh, yes. Picking the right outfit is exactly like fighting a duel, with the same prepara
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Chapter 20

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 20 (The Unseen Court) Epigraph: A letter! Who is this one from? Relative youth, but not Sazed since we heard from him in the last book. So I’m guessing this one isn’t a Vessel. The first letters were to/from Frost, also not a vessel, so that’s not unprecedented. Without knowing more I’m going to go out on a limb and guess this is the president of Silverlight University. Seems as likely as anything else I
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Internal Art: Map of Shadesmar

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. A Portion of the Southern Sea of Souls Map image here. I want to reiterate that Nazh is a gem. He’s much more present on this map than some of the others, with lots of annotations. I love it.  First of all, what is that creature in the top left?! It looks reminiscent of a larkin but is clearly a creature of the Cognitive Realm and looks awesome. A less fanciful rendition of this absolutely has to appear i
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Interlude I-3

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Interlude I-3 Taravangian. Yes, this is definitely new header art.  Title: “Into The Fire” Just going by what Odium said in the last chapter, this is probably a reference to being called up to actually do some betrayal. Dun dun dun. Is this the usual form of deviation from his initial prediction, caused by multiplied butterflies, or is it a larger divergence now that at least one Shard is actively parti
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