WoK ReRead: Cool things I noticed

[WeiryWriter]

So, as probably many of you are doing, I'm rereading Way of Kings.  As I read there are some cool, to me at least, things that I noticed based on new knowledge from Words of Radiance.

 

'I saw others of your kind,' Kaladin said idly.

'Others?' she asked...

'Windspren,' Kaladin said. 'Chasing after the storm. Are you sure you don't want to go with them?'

This is from Chapter 4 of WoK. We know now that Syl is, very probably, the only honorspren in the physical realm and although at this point she doesn't remember it I think she almost does. I'm reading her as being confused, but in a kind of instinctual way. She doesn't know what she is, just that she probably isn't a windspren. (That sounded cooler and made more sense in my head...)

Another cool thing is in Shallan's description of the letter she leaves Jasnah, in order to get her to reconsider her taking Shallan on as a ward:

...for all the fact that this letter was a lie. A lie built of truths.

I kind of squeed at that. If we didn't know that she had already come to the attention of the Cryptics, I bet that would have brought them running. (and by the way I just love the "true lie" thing)

[ccstat]

On the topic of cool things noticed this time through:

In the Starfalls vision Taffa swears by the heralds a few times, but when she's really amazed she says, "Three Gods, Heb" 

Sixteen guesses for who she's talking about...

[Delightful]

I kind of squeed at that. If we didn't know that she had already come to the attention of the Cryptics, I bet that would have brought them running. (and by the way I just love the "true lie" thing)

I'm also reareading that at the moment, and thought exactly the same thing

 

As well as that, when listing the philosophers she's studied in her first interview with Jasnah (pg 95 of the paperback), Shallan says:

 

I have read through the complete works of Tormas, Nashan, Niali the Just, and - of course - Nohadon.

a) Nohadon - SHE'S READ THE WAY OF KINGS! What does this mean for her future Knight Radiantness?

 

b ) The 'of course' is interesting. From Gavilar and Dalinar's reported 'over-religiousness' I would presume Way of Kings is a bit of an obscure text most people haven't heard of or haven't read (and definitely don't believe in to any sort of practical degree). This means that to Shallan at least, it's some kind of fundamental philosophical text it should be obvious she has studied, and it also means that it was one of the exactly eighty-seven books her father owned. Which is interesting in itself for what it says about her father ---unless it's one of those books everyone owns but no one reads.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Delightful

[Duskshard]

So reading the pre-released chapters of WoR has wetted my appetite, so I just started to reread TWoK and on page 1 something jumps out at me.

 

Kalak is walking through the battlefield observing all the destruction and the bodies of the dead.

 

Many of the bodies around him were human; many were not. Blood mixed. Red. Orange. Violet.

 

 

Now the red blood is obviously human, it's been a while since I read the book but I'm pretty sure the Orange blood is Parshendi. So what/who dose the Violet blood belong to?

 

In chapter 9 of WoR (Walking the grave) Kaladin takes his newly formed squad down into the chasms to train them. He leaves the group and goes of on his own, eventually ending up kneeling beside a pool of violet water.

 

The pool in front of him glowed a deep violet. He’d noticed it earlier, but in the light of his sphere it had been harder to see. Now, in the dimness, the pool could reveal its eerie radiance.

 

 

Could this pool of violet water really be a pool of somethings blood? Are Kaladin and the bridgemen in imminent danger? Is Kaladin about to get a chance to use and possibly discover more of his windrunner abilities, inspiring the new recruits awe in their new found leader? 

Edited January 28, 2014 by Duskshard

[Moogle]

The pool of violet water Kaladin sees is just an amethyst broam lighting it up. I was going crazy thinking it was Odium's Shardpool or something, too.

 

Violet blood belongs to chasmfiends, as I recall. This makes one suspect that the blood-colors belong to creatures made by one Shard in particular. Humans for Honor, Chasmfiends (and other crabs/crustaceans including chulls, axehounds, cremlings) for Cultivation, and Parshendi/parshmen for Odium (and everything else with orange blood).

Edited January 28, 2014 by Moogle

[Delightful]

 

 

In chapter 9 of WoR (Walking the grave) Kaladin takes his newly formed squad down into the chasms to train them. He leaves the group and goes of on his own, eventually ending up kneeling beside a pool of violet water.

 

 

Could this pool of violet water really be a pool of somethings blood? Are Kaladin and the bridgemen in imminent danger? Is Kaladin about to get a chance to use and possibly discover more of his windrunner abilities, inspiring the new recruits awe in their new found leader? 

I'm fairly certain the violet glow is from the sphere Rock retrieves from the pool soon after, but there has been some speculation about it being Odium's Shardpool/otherwise significant.  http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/5538-odiums-shardpool/?hl=shardpool

Actually, on finding the topic: it was concluded that it was just a violet sphere.

The blood thing in interesting however- according to one of the tor.com articles on Rosharan ecology (http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/07/the-ecology-of-roshar-continued-quest-for-blood), purple blood belongs to the chasmfiends, so the pool is a perfectly logical place for chasmfied blood....but what would have hurt it? That could mean there's an angry/injured chasmfiend hanging around right where Kaladin is training new recruits.*cue dramatic music*.

 

 

Edit: Ninja'd!

Edited January 28, 2014 by Delightful

[The Rooster]

I just finished up a re-read and the thing that really strikes me is how obvious it is that The Thrill is of Odium.  From Dalinar's POV when it gets it's claws in him it's like (poorly paraphrased) "This is what he was made for, killing! Glory! Why did he worry about other things?"  The when he gets the revulsion I believe it's the battle within him, the power of Honor trying to right the ship.  That's why he revolted.  It's two influences making a battleground of his body.

Edited January 28, 2014 by AG Rooster

[Duskshard]

The pool of violet water Kaladin sees is just an amethyst broam lighting it up. I was going crazy thinking it was Odium's Shardpool or something, too.

 

Violet blood belongs to chasmfiends, as I recall. This makes one suspect that the blood-colors belong to creatures made by one Shard in particular. Humans for Honor, Chasmfiends (and other crabs/crustaceans including chulls, axehounds, cremlings) for Cultivation, and Parshendi/parshmen for Odium (and everything else with orange blood).

 

 

I'm fairly certain the violet glow is from the sphere Rock retrieves from the pool soon after, but there has been some speculation about it being Odium's Shardpool/otherwise significant.  http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/5538-odiums-shardpool/?hl=shardpool

Actually, on finding the topic: it was concluded that it was just a violet sphere.

The blood thing in interesting however- according to one of the tor.com articles on Rosharan ecology (http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/07/the-ecology-of-roshar-continued-quest-for-blood), purple blood belongs to the chasmfiends, so the pool is a perfectly logical place for chasmfied blood....but what would have hurt it? That could mean there's an angry/injured chasmfiend hanging around right where Kaladin is training new recruits.*cue dramatic music*.

 

 

You guys are right, I guess I got overly excited. After I posted I continued to reread chapter 9 of WoR and it was the amethyst broom that was giving the water that colour, and tipped Kal of that there was something in there.  

[Aleksiel]

I also started re-reading WoK. And I noticed something when Kaladin first starts training as a slave with that plank

 

 

He worked himself ragged. In fact, he felt close to collapsing several times, but every time he did, he found a reserve of strength from somewhere.

 

Stormlight!

 

 

He'd been running for hours. Where did he found the strength?

 

Stormlight! The guys from Bridge Four are watching him, betting spheres on how heavy the plank was. 

It's really cool to notice such details I never payed attention to when I first read the book. 

[Delightful]

 

Stormlight! The guys from Bridge Four are watching him, betting spheres on how heavy the plank was. 

It's really cool to notice such details I never payed attention to when I first read the book. 

 

It's always awesome when you suddenly notice all the subtle foreshadowing

 

If you look out for it, there are also many many times on bridgeruns where he suddenly has extra energy, and the arrows just miss him, and most times afterwards there'll be some sly mention (usually him grumbling) about how his spheres are dun and Gaz "must have been giving them dun spheres again". I think there's even a point where he challenges Gaz who turns around and says something like "But they were recharged last highstorm!"

[kobain]

I'm almost done with my pre-release re-read, and something i've noticed is how often Adolin mentions (on the chapter where he duels that other shard bearer) how the parshendi don't attack the Alethi war-camps anymore. I think that's foreshadowing a battle in the Alethi camps where we might see Kaladin showing his awesomeness protecting Dalinar.

[Aleksiel]

It's always awesome when you suddenly notice all the subtle foreshadowing

 

If you look out for it, there are also many many times on bridgeruns where he suddenly has extra energy, and the arrows just miss him, and most times afterwards there'll be some sly mention (usually him grumbling) about how his spheres are dun and Gaz "must have been giving them dun spheres again". I think there's even a point where he challenges Gaz who turns around and says something like "But they were recharged last highstorm!"

 

Yeah, but the more it's mentioned the clearer it becomes there's something to it, while the first time it's hinted is very subtle and easy to miss. That's why I was 'Oh, stormlight! How obvious is that when you know!'  Brandon is really good at this!

 

Edit: Though I wonder how nobody saw him inhale the stormlight.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Aleksiel

[Rew]

The pool of violet water Kaladin sees is just an amethyst broam lighting it up. I was going crazy thinking it was Odium's Shardpool or something, too.

 

Violet blood belongs to chasmfiends, as I recall. This makes one suspect that the blood-colors belong to creatures made by one Shard in particular. Humans for Honor, Chasmfiends (and other crabs/crustaceans including chulls, axehounds, cremlings) for Cultivation, and Parshendi/parshmen for Odium (and everything else with orange blood).

 

Huh, I always thought that Odium was associated with the purple and Cultivation with the orange.  This was probably influenced by my ideas of the moons being representative of the "three gods" (as noted above as a oath/curse) - the purple one, Salas, seems to be associated with Odium.  I've always found the color imagery interesting and potentially of specific import (in many cases, but not all). 

[Moogle]

Huh, I always thought that Odium was associated with the purple and Cultivation with the orange.  This was probably influenced by my ideas of the moons being representative of the "three gods" (as noted above as a oath/curse) - the purple one, Salas, seems to be associated with Odium.  I've always found the color imagery interesting and potentially of specific import (in many cases, but not all). 

 

Yeah, the three moons don't work with the blood. I don't think it's a stretch to say Honor is blue, though, and that just plain doesn't work with red human blood. I think blood color has nothing to do with the Shard's color, just that blood color signifies a race the Shard in question made.

 

I think that purple/green could belong to Odium/Cultivation and vice-versa. Cultivation's Old Magic just screams purple at me, and green can be for envy. But I could also say that Odium is red because all of his corrupted spren have red eyes/red colors (deathspren, thunderclasts, and stormspren?). Maybe Odium's red mixed with Honor's blue to create the purple moon.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Moogle

[Chlehrma]

Human-red

Parshendi-orange

Aimian?-purple

Chasmfiend--definitely purple

[Moogle]

I think that purple/green could belong to Odium/Cultivation and vice-versa. Cultivation's Old Magic just screams purple at me, and green can be for envy. But I could also say that Odium is red because all of his corrupted spren have red eyes/red colors (deathspren, thunderclasts, and stormspren?). Maybe Odium's red mixed with Honor's blue to create the purple moon.

 

At the risk of committing a huge faux pas by quoting my own post, I just realized that the Voidbinding (?) chart at the back of TWoK is very purple and has a woman who could very easily be Cultivation on the borders. Thus my association with Cultivation/Old Magic and purple.

[Rew]

Yeah, I can totally see more conflicting evidence for both sides now.  It's good to have things like this pointed out to get one out of the rut of one-way thinking. 

 

I like the thought about the endpaper and Old Magic.  Gonna have to do a lot more thinking about it...

[WeiryWriter]

Another cool* thing.

 

So in Ironstance we see that Adolin inherited his plate from his mother's family and won his blade in a duel.  But we had thought he inherited both.  Well here's the actual quote from WoK chapter 12:

 

 

He was wearing his Shardplate, and so he had to be careful when grabbing it, lest he crush it.  One's muscles reaced with increased speed, strength, and dexterity when wearing the armor, and it took practice to use it correctly.  Adolin was still occasionally caught by surprise, though he'd held this suit--inherited from his mother's side of the family--since his sixteenth birthday.  That was now seven years past.

 

So it doesn't actually say anything about his blade, we were just assuming...

 

*Disclaimer: What the poster deems cool might be radically different from what normal people would deem cool.  He doesn't care.

[ccstat]

Oh! Probably been pointed out before, but the midnight essences were cut in half by shardblades. That means that whatever makes something "alive" doesn't apply to the Ten Deaths even when moving around, attacking Radiants, etc.

[DocHoliday]

On the topic of cool things noticed this time through:

In the Starfalls vision Taffa swears by the heralds a few times, but when she's really amazed she says, "Three Gods, Heb" 

Sixteen guesses for who she's talking about...

Ya, I've brought that up  few times. Isn't it ironic that a common fields woman from the Dark Ages knows more than Jasnah about Religion?

Makes me chuckle imagining Brandon smirking when he thought that up.

[Duskshard]

I've just finished "Starfall" as part of my reread and something that the female KR said stuck out to me.

 

"All who can fight are needed" the woman said. "And all who have a desire to fight should be compelled to come to Alethela. Fighting, even this fighting against the Ten Deaths, changes a person. We can teach you so that it will not destroy you. Come to us."

 

 

 

 

This to me sounds like she's referring to the Thrill, that fighting of any kind opens you up to it. That if you're not taught to defend against it, it can destroy you. That would be in line with the theory that the Thrill is of Odium.

 

We see in the WoR preview chapters that the Thrill is the only thing that makes Sadeas feel alive anymore. Becoming an agent of Odium maybe?

 

==========================

 

EDIT 1

 

Something else I noticed from "Starfall" that I didn't notice before.

 

The 2 KR we see fighting both give of different colours of stormlight, I could be wrong, but I infer from this that each of the 10 different orders of Surgebinder hold Stormlight in a colour associated with the different spren their bonded to.

 

The Female KR - Amber Stormlight

The Male KR - Blue Stormlight

Kaladin - White Stormlight

 

Now we know that many more KR fall from the sky during Skyfall, and I assume that'd be a mixture of different orders as well. But for arguments sake lets just say that the was a combination of two orders that fell from the sky.

 

If it is true that each Order gives of it's own colour of Stormlight then Windrunners would be white, and if for arguments sake lets say that Skybreakers are blue, then what Order is the female KR from (Edgedancer maybe?) 

 

If that's the case then it brings up questions. Where did they come from? How did the get to the village? Obviously the Windrunners and the Skybreakers could of done it with their shared Gravity Surge, but what of the KR from the third Order? How did she fall from the sky? Are the KR Order connected to transport able to transport others across great distances as well? Did they all just transport to above the village and let themselves fall? 

 

ADDED INFO:

 

In Dalinars vision in Chapter 52 "A Highway to the Sun" which doesn't quite add up with the theory above. This is the vision where the Radiants give up their Shards. There's only 2 orders in this vision, the Windrunners (who glow blue) and the Stonewards (who glow amber)

 

If my theory was correct then the male KR from "starfall" is a Windrunner and the female KR would be a Stoneward, but that doesn't make sense with Kaladin glowing white with stormlight.

 

That got me thinking that maybe each order doesn't have it own colour, that maybe that certain orders are grouped together for a different reason and glow the same colours, either theory could be correct but neither solve the problem of Kaladin.

 

The only explanations that makes sense to me is that as you say the ideals and move closer toward "Radianthood" or once you've said the final ideal and become a KR then the stormlight you give of changes colour.

 

or

 

The glow from the Shardplate doesn't have anything to do with the colour of stormlight a Surgebinder gives of.

 

I welcome anyone elses theories that explain this.

 

===========================

 

EDIT 2

 

Something else I've noticed this read through is the reference to maps.

 

After Shallans fathers death they find he has an odd collection of maps, this is referenced more than once.

 

Dalinar tells Jasnah that the first thing that the Parshendi asked him once they had learned their language was "Do you have any maps" I can't remember the exact wording but I found it a strange thing to ask.

 

=============================

 

EDIT 3

 

During Dalinar's vision in Chapter 52 "A Highway to the Sun" around 300 KR give up their Shards and betray their spren. These 300 are only from the Windrunners and Stonewards. That made something that Tanavast said to Dalinar at the end stand out to me.

 

As the former KR were walking away Tanavast say's "They were the first, and they were also the last"

 

Does that mean that those 2 Orders were the only ones to betray the bond and give up their Shards? What of the other orders? What happened to them? Did giving up the Shards break the bond? if so, then why?

 

And who were those guys waiting for the former KR in the distance? What part did they play? 

Edited February 4, 2014 by Duskshard

[Aleksiel]

Something Lirin says to Kaladin:

 

 

I’m sure many Alethi towns would welcome us. Most have never had a surgeon to care for them. They do the best they can with local men who learned most of what they know from superstition or working on the occasional wounded chull. We could even move to Kholinar; I’m skilled enough to get work as a physician’s assistant there.

 

Kaladin could have still ended in Dalinar's army, though the circumstances would have been so different

 

And something weird:

 

 

Kaladin’s eyes snapped open, and they leaked light too, faintly colored amber.

 

Isn't amber associated with Stonewards? Since Kaladin is a Windrunner, shouldn't his eyes glow bright blue instead?

Edited February 6, 2014 by Aleksiel

[PeterAhlstrom]

Isn't amber associated with Stonewards? Since Kaladin is a Windrunner, shouldn't his eyes glow bright blue instead?

The amber thing is a mistake that was fixed in the paperback.

[IllNsickly]

The amber thing is a mistake that was fixed in the paperback.

I read that in my E-book version and just assumed it was because he had brown eyes and the stormlight just lightened his natural eye colour.. Thanks Peter, you just poked a hole in my favourite theory.

*sniffle*

[Tarion]

I'm only part way through my re-read at the moment, but there's a few things that are really standing out to me.

 

Firstly, the Thrill isn't always bad.  Dalinar identifies the Thrill of contest when racing Elhokar.

It wasn’t nearly as keen as the Thrill of battle, but it was a worthy substitute.

It makes me wonder if this was the original Thrill instilled by one of the other Shards (And I can see arguments for both), that Odium somehow altered or added to, leading to the nastier, Thrill for killing.  Because the Thrill for competing with other people not only feels benign, but pretty beneficial.  It also really fits into the religious beliefs of Vorinism.  

Secondly, the evidence for Szeth's blade being Jezrien's Honorblade seems much stronger than I'd ever noticed, especially in light of the pre-release chapters.  Particularly the fact that it changes his eyes to Sapphire, Jezrien's colour, instead of just lightening his own green and explains his Windrunning.