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 that’s what he means. It does indicate that something especially weird is happening on Threnody, beyond what I expected. Upcoming Threnody novel should be interesting in that respect, though I doubt we’ll get too many answers. It will probably focus on its own little horror story rather than dropping tons of info relevant to the wider Cosmere.

Hmm. Szeth is disguised by lightweaving, maintained by another radiant, but Nightblood’s sheath (presumably aluminum” couldn’t be disguised that way and had to be physically concealed. It’s strange to me that the sheath would not disrupt a lightweaving in physical contact with it (on the rest of Szeth’s body, hands, etc.) and only resist changes to its own appearance. Navani describes it as the lightweaving not “sticking to it.” We know that lightweavings can create hologram-like constructs in the air and aren’t limited to covering physical objects, so it’s interesting from a mechanics point of view how much that sheath interferes and how much it doesn’t.

“Almighty send” I’m pretty positive we’ve had that construction in a previous book, but I’ll add it to the list just in case. I can only positively remember instances of “Heralds send” or a specific herald.

How old is Gavinor? I was imagining a two or three year old, but he’s acting a bit older than that.

“She held his hand for a season, then let him go.” These two are adorable. Also, “for a season” is an interesting turn of phrase for Roshar, which has very temporary seasons consisting of essentially several days of similar weather, stretching out to possibly a string of weeks if it’s especially persistent. If an English speaker said “for a season” I would interpret that as a long time, but this feels like only a bit longer than “for a moment.”

Really? This goodbye with Jasnah is the most awkward hug you’ve ever been a part of? This doesn’t sound like the definitive quantification I expect from a rigorous engineer such as yourself, Navani. Surely your strangely dysfunctional family back when you were married to Gavilar provided you with plenty of awkwardness.

Navani calling Dalinar “your uncle” when speaking to Jasnah makes the most sense in terms of what they would be used to and also in terms of the formal relationships of the royal family, but there’s also the step-father thing going on that has got to make it weird to know what to call each other.

Sebarial! We’ve missed you. I love that Navani assumes his improved wardrobe is either thanks to Palona or Adolin. Definitely no other possibilities there. Though, to be fair Adolin is the Kholin highprince, so he would have access and clout (in the Alethi view) to help influence that decision. Of course we all know that Sebarial is very purposeful in how he appears to others, so it’s a little surprising to me that Navani doesn’t see that.

Turinad? That’s is name? I don’t think we’ve seen it before, but I’m probably just forgetting. Because Turinad is a pretty incredible name and it deserves to have been used before now.

Oho, Navani has discovered ambition beyond marrying Dalinar. She’s not content to just run the kingdom for the famous warrior, to just be a patron of the arts and sciences. I am excited to see what you decide to pursue, my dear.

Oh, and his nickname is Turi. That’s adorable.Also, why has it taken this long for Navani to give the man some relationship advice? He’s been with Palona for years!

Here, finally, is the textual description of the atrium to accompany Shallan’s drawing. This is a massive, magnificent place.

Oh, neat a scale model of Urithiru. Is it a control center or just a map? 

And now we get a cliffhanger with the anti-spren-slavery pen pal trying to call her. At least it looks like the next chapter continues with Navani. Unfortunately, it is late now and I’ll have to get to it another day.