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

Interlude I-7 (Szeth)
Interludes! I have to say I am super thrilled that Chiri-Chiri gets the next interlude after this one, though I’m concerned about continuity and spoilers since I haven’t read Dawnshard yet. Oh well, that’s for later. At the moment it is time for Szeth…

Hold up. Szeth-son-Honor? That is a changeup and a half. Someone’s internalized identity has been making leaps and bounds of progress since the end of Oathbringer. I don’t remember what we saw from Szeth in Oathbringer exactly, but I’m pretty positive he didn’t think of himself like this yet.

Just a friendly guy and his sword having a chat. 
Shame that Dalinar doesn’t like talking to sword-nimi. I wonder if it’s the clash with Honor’s essence, or the familiarity with the Thrill, or something less realmatically based.

Aww, little Gav wants to be a Windrunner when he grows. No offense to all those other possible Orders (or to Daddy Bondsmith).

Quote

“Before his family had been given to the Honorblades.”

And  isn’t that a concerning use of a transitive verb. 

Huh. Szeth can see his own afterimage. That’s got to be disconcerting. I really wasn’t expecting it to show up to his own sight.

This interaction between Szeth and his spren is weird. Super weird–he doesn’t even know his spren’s name! It’s a huge contrast to the other orders we’ve seen so far. I guess that’s what you get when one of them has continuity across centuries while the others are newly finding their own way, but still. I’m getting real Jedi/Sith vibes here.

This crusade sounds like something we’ll hear a lot more about in Unhallowed Stones (assuming that’s still the working title for #5). I don’t know how the story would have been structured if Dalinar and Szeth’s books swapped places as originally planned.

Anyway… Szeth has to stop following Dalinar and “become the Law” in order to earn his plate at the 4th ideal. That kind of self confidence does not sound like a good moral approach. I definitely wouldn’t do well as a skybreaker.

An Oathstone is certainly ominous, but if I’m guessing this is intended as a lure to get Szeth to talk to him, not something that Taravangian actually wants… though it could well fill two purposes. Kill two chickens with one stone, etc. There’s a good chance we’ll see something about this in the upcoming interlude, though, so I won’t speculate too much. 

Before that, though–On to Chiri-Chiri!