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Starting Part Five


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

Part V start (Ketek, Epigraphs, and speculation)
Before I start in on the final section of the book, let’s take a moment to address a few things. 

First, the Ketek:

Quote

Burdens, Our Calling.
Songs of Home
A Knowledge
Knowing a Home of Songs,
Called Our Burden

That repeated “Knowledge” in the middle doesn’t quite match the form we’ve seen from past keteks, as I recall. Isn’t there usually a single non repeated word in the third line? Man, my Alethi poetic analysis is rusty. 
I’m a bit surprised to have the entire second half of the ketek appear in the final section of the book–I was starting to think it wasn’t a ketek at all. It feels like something that should apply to Jaxlim and the Keepers of Songs, but keteks are a human thing. I don’t see non-Vorins becoming enamored of symmetry to the point of composing these. The listeners already have their own songs without downgrading to human poetic forms. I’m not sure how to interpret the interplay between the concepts here. I’ll have to wait until it shows up in context, probably in the epilogue.

 

Second, let’s revisit the Part III epigraphs, excerpts from the Rhythm of War notebook.  The authorship was bugging me way too much, but now that we have both the context and the authors, I might get more out of it. Here’s a chapter-by-chapter commentary on the epigraphs.

Page 1

  • Navani has done this shared notebook thing before. It’s a standard or at least a common format for collaborations, though her research partner is a new twist.
  • Word choice suggests this is Raboniel, but it’s not explicit. This person has hopes for the outcome.
  • A direct response in the undertext to the previous comment, presumably by the other partner, but that’s not certain. This person professes to only care about getting a scientific answer, which sounds like Navani

Page 3

  • “Fevered state” sounds like that rush to complete things at the end of Part IV, but this is only on page 3 so I’m not sure what Navani’s referring to here.
  • Raboniel (in undertext) advises detachment and to “abandon lesser connections.”

Page 6

  • Navani has deja vu about the rhythm/Tone. Not sure which one she means, probably Honor’s.
  • Raboniel (in undertext) is surprised at Navani’s familiarity with the rhythms and acknowledges that humans may belong on Roshar after all, since they’ve been here for thousands of years. From what we’ve seen in the story, that doesn’t mean she’ll be any more compassionate in prosecuting her war and trying to genocide the nahel spren. But maybe she’s more willing to accept the survival of a subjugated humanity?
  • Raboniel laments that it’s more complicated than the simple answer of Stormlight and Voidlight annihilating each other.
  • Navani encourages results-focused scientific thinking.
  • Raboniel (in undertext) defies that, argues that scientists are not dispassionate observers of the cosmere but perform their work with hope for what they might discover.
  • Navani (in undertext) reflects on the oddities of working with an ancient being who has not lived all their thousands of years on Roshar and thus is missing modern developments.

Page 10

  • Raboniel says the emotional influence of the Rhythm of War will be of interest to someone named El. Last time reading this I got confused and thought it was a shortening of Ulim, since I was going on the theory that these were Venli’s research notes from the Shattered Plains. Now, I have no idea who it would be. I don’t remember the Pursuer’s actual name, and can’t think of any other Fused that would take an interest.
  • Oh, Navani (in the undertext) has the same question I did. “Who is El?” She says they probably aren’t a Fused, given the lack of title. My way-out-there guess is that it’s one of the unmade. Kelek shortened Ba-Ado-Mishram to just Mishram. Maybe this is an abbreviation of Yelig-nar? I know that’s a stretch.

Page 13 

  • Navani wants to know about the sand from Yolen
  • Raboniel (in undertext) explains about the lichen that grows in the sand. Notably, she says “I am told,” so she hasn’t really investigated it herself. Also, I hadn’t previously paid attention to the statement here that the sand can be propagated by cultivating the lichen to grow into new sand. That means trade with Yolen is not the only source for this, and someone in the cosmere probably has a profitable little lichen farm for selling to interested parties
  • Raboniel (still in undertext) talks about other offworld items–specifically something that resembles the necklace from that Shadesmar marketplace, which she says is meant to “anchor a person through Cognitive abnormalities,” whatever that actually means.

Page 21

  • Navani is questioning the nature of God due to her research into Investiture
  • Raboniel (in undertext) says gods/shards probably can’t be destroyed.

Page 27

  • Raboniel says “don’t mourn for what has happened,” presumably meaning the early failure to create an anti-Light
  • Yes, Raboniel is now leaving Navani to her own devices. 

Final page

  • Navani thinks about opposites and what that could mean for sounds that have meaning and intent.
  • Navani thinks about her new title as Voice of Lights, and says that means she must express their desires, then connects that to the idea of Intent. You know, the first time around I didn’t make the obvious connection to Venli’s job as Voice to Leshwi. Navani’s title draws on that, but makes her Voice to all the lights, which is much more of an honor than I gave the name credit for. It’s not a recognition of esoteric, scientific accomplishment, but a position that makes her the interpreter for the powers of deity.
  • Navani thinks about Intent.

 

Third, the cast list for part five includes the usual suspects, plus Vyre and someone named Lezian. No clues at this time on who that would be, but I’m going to go out on a limb of wild speculation to guess that it is a personal attendant to Ishar. That seems like the sort of person Brandon might give a perspective to, and the name could be vaguely Tukari. Okay, I’m making that part up. I don’t know much about naming conventions in Emul/Tukar besides that they use a lot of double Qs in place names. The use of an X might be more consistent with Azir (compare Gawx, Zawfix) but there is also Sesemalex Dar, so Xs aren’t necessarily rare. Anyway, that’s my guess.
 

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