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

Epilogue (Dirty Tricks)
Icons: Jester and Ash (mirrored) –Wit the lightweaver, naturally

Design is the sort of audience member Wit needs: unimpressed and… I want to say snarky but she’s more genuine than that. Willing to object.

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He was curious where it would lead. Also horrified. But the two emotions were not mutually exclusive.

Wit, on considering Sja-Anat’s expanding influence. This is striking because Sja-Anat has been shown to be working for the benefit of Roshar and against Odium. Is there something about her “corruption” of spren that Hoid would consider horrifying? Surely he’s encountered things like this in the past, and the context makes it seem like it’s the scale of the thing that worries him. 

Wit makes a good and interesting point about how the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief is what makes them participants in the experience of storytelling or magic or theater. I hadn’t thought of it in that specific a breakdown before.

That series of “sense” puns are quite fun when read in text, but I would have been utterly lost in the audiobook. I can’t decide if I love it or hate it.

Taravangian is too competent, even when pretending to be as mindless as Rayse, and Wit clues in that something is wrong… but he keeps his memories in Breath rather than in his brain, which makes them vulnerable. But Odium doesn’t take everything, he merely erases the last few minutes and repeats his performance. There are far more holes in it the second time, but it’s in the direction that Wit expects, so he doesn’t question it. Even when his reduced Breath reserve means he’s lost perfect pitch, he pushes past it all and ignores the discontinuities.

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“The Beyond knows”

–new swear from Wit! Onto the list it goes.

Honestly, I’m a little shocked that Brandon let Wit be bested here. It’s a good technique for upping the stakes, to show Wit being bamboozled and harmed. Brandon is fond enough of Wit and especially these epilogue ruminations on storytelling that I never anticipated this being such a complete win for neo-Odium. 

It hammers home the threat that an ascended Taravangian poses, but I still like Mr. T a lot and know that Hoid is not always working toward ends that the other protagonists would agree with, so I’m withholding judgement on whether this is a good or a bad thing.

I am incredibly intrigued by the question of what Renarin knows. His visions let him see the confrontation with Szeth ahead of time, and I have a suspicion that Renarin knows about the ascension. If I’m right, that makes it fascinating that he hasn’t told Dalinar anything about it (yet). I wonder what end he’s working toward, and how that aligns with Cultivation’s desires. Going the other direction, Taravangian knows that Renarin is a blind spot and a fulcrum for events, and I wonder how he’s going to try to remedy/exploit that.