[OB] Oathbringer chapters 10-12

[+Spicker]

15 minutes ago, robardin said:

I had hoped this was true, too, the first time I read it, but the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. Why would Dalinar be ashamed of NOT killing a seven year old boy?

I will think on this more. The one thing that comes to mind is that maybe whatever Dalinar had to do to save and hide the kid is what he is shamed about, and not actually letting the kid live? If the child is alive, his identity is now hidden. How could he have pulled off such a stunt last minute though? If he didn't kill the kid, he would have had to fake the death somehow.
I also like to think that if he really did kill the kid that he would have been more devastated by his actions when the Thrill faded. This could just be wishful thinking on my part though...
EDIT:  I want to make it clear, I fully believe that the person Dalinar was at the time could have killed the kid, I am just not convinced yet that it happened based off how it was written. I am fully prepared to accept that he did kill the boy if nothing else comes from this. And if he did kill the boy, I am glad that was not included.

Edited September 19, 2017 by Spicker

[yulerule]

 

2 minutes ago, mariapapadia said:

Also did anyone else got the feeling that each week we get a direct reply to something everyone debates on? Last week was the spanreed, this week Renarin .. 

Yup. Last week built up a ridiculous amount of theories about Adolin's wrist, and medical consequences were described in great detail. Now it's boom- healed. 

Were getting tiny bits each week so we start to obsess over irrelevant details. If we had the entire book now, Adolin's wrist wouldn't even have registered never mind contribute to a multiple page discussion.

[+robardin]

5 minutes ago, Hischier said:

Why not show the scene of him killing the kid if he did it? That combined with some of Dalinar's thoughts makes me think he spared the kid.  

All I'm saying is, the only thing we know about What Happened In There is that (a) Dalinar is ashamed of it, to the point of hoping his brother doesn't find out, and (b) Dalinar came out of it with Oathrbringer in his possession.

Typically there's only one way to disarm someone with a Shardblade and to claim it.

Of course, I'd assume Dalinar, even wounded, could manage to overpower a seven year old boy... Just shove one of the defeated guards at him to knock him down, get the boy to the ground, then pin him down. But The Thrill... may have compelled a quicker, more violent victory.

I myself have tried hard to think of another way for Dalinar that involves hoping Gavilar doesn't find out what he's capable of doing for a Shardblade, and doesn't involve killing a child who's old enough to remember these events, but nothing seems plausible. Fostering him out in secret doesn't work, because the kid would definitely still remember Dalinar killing his family.

Edited September 19, 2017 by robardin

[Azul]

36 minutes ago, Argent said:

Quote

“Ryshadium have stone hooves,” Renarin said, “stronger than ordinary horses’. Never need to be shod.”

Loooreee!

 

You forgot to add they also have rectangular pupils.  Not sure what it means, other than they have mastered sage mode.

[Elena]

1 hour ago, Scriptorian said:

Syl no! Don't provoke the Shadolin shippers!

Too late my friend I am already hERE WITH ALL MY BELLS ON let me dream for one hot minute

 

[yulerule]

Also, it wasn't a regular kid - he was the heir. When going about conquering, you don't leave people around which resistance might form. By making the people utterly leaderless, it's easier to install your own people at the top.

[What's a Seawolf?]

Lift is so going to be responsible for making Azir and Dalinar play nice.

And she'll probably do it accidentally.

Then she'll eat Dalinar's dinner right from under him.

[DSC01]

I think that Adolin getting a glimpse of himself, perfected, when Renarin touched him may be the most interesting piece of information from this run of chapters. This is obviously his "extra" ability, and it is very much like Shallan's ability to draw an idealized version of someone and transform them into a person closer to that ideal. Here, the contribution of the Surges becomes clear, as we can see the contrast in how Progression and Transformation contribute to the ability, while Illumination seems to do the same thing (that is, show someone a different version of themselves).

[Mulk]

I laughed at the whole Syl as cheerleader of sex image. Probably blushed a bit too.

I think you don't show Dalinar killing a kid because you don't need to.  At least not at this point.  That's a massive shock that (assuming he actually did kill the kid) might overawe in the minds of the audience whatever his big reveal later for Dalinar is - the act(s) that put him on the road to the Nightwatcher and that makes his friend/combat ally leave the army for the ardentia.  That needs to be biggest and baddest, I think, in terms of overall book build up, and I don't think we've seen that yet.

I don't think Taravangian will ever truly be an ally unless he has a day of ultimate intelligence allowing him to rewrite the Diagram in a less contentious way, or a day allowing him to offer binding commentary in which he reinterprets some of it and comes out with a new course of action following Dalinar's lead.

With respect to the transformed parshmen, I find their organization to be fully in line with what we know of the Parshendi - we know they can be in tune with each other over vast distances, so I find the fact that they are organized and unified over great distances to be in accord with what we know of them.  I also think that it's possible that the reason some of them end up warform  (or others) is that the nature of a storm is such that a close grouping of parshmen won't always have enough spren "hit" it to turn them all stormform.  It still drags them out of the dullform variant they are in and gives them much better brains and capacity.  That's my theory anyway

Really wish November would get here.

Edited September 19, 2017 by Mulk
spelling

[+robardin]

2 minutes ago, yulerule said:

Also, it wasn't a regular kid - he was the heir. When going about conquering, you don't leave people around which resistance might form. By making the people utterly leaderless, it's easier to install your own people at the top.

Yep. All signs point to the kid meeting Death by Dalinar. Which, when the Thrill subsided, he is ashamed of.

That said, they didn't need the boy dead - if he were the new, legitimate highprince of that pricedom, what they really were after (as a political goal) was his swearing to Gavilar as the king of Alethkar. As we've seen, once they "united" the twelve princedoms, there are still twelve highprinces with their respective domains.

Of course What Blackthorn Dalinar was really after was plunder, and Shards.

[vividox]

40 minutes ago, dendrophobe said:

Whatever gave you that idea? I thought he was reluctant, but... I didn't see anything sinister or even worrisome in his exchange with Adolin.

Definitely just me reading into things. The only part that really even got me thinking that way was this:

Quote

"Some has. But it… frightens me, Adolin.” He held up his hand, and it started to glow, wisps of Stormlight trailing off it, like smoke from a fire. “What if I hurt someone, or ruin things?”

Mostly, I just want in Renarin's head and overhear a conversation between him and Glys. Or something. If mysterious people are intriguing, a mysterious type of Radiant is even more so. 

[Calderis]

3 minutes ago, DSC01 said:

I think that Adolin getting a glimpse of himself, perfected, when Renarin touched him may be the most interesting piece of information from this run of chapters. This is obviously his "extra" ability, and it is very much like Shallan's ability to draw an idealized version of someone and transform them into a person closer to that ideal. Here, the contribution of the Surges becomes clear, as we can see the contrast in how Progression and Transformation contribute to the ability, while Illumination seems to do the same thing (that is, show someone a different version of themselves).

I disagree. I think the healing that Renarin enacted was just much stronger than necessary. 

Cosmere healing comes from the Spiritual realm and flows outward. And the Spiritual is a realm of ideals. He saw his Spiritual self. His idealized self, because he was momentarily more fully connected to it by the investiture of the healing. 

[lol_king]

I see that most people are assuming all the parshmen will be completely villainous but we have from the blurb this line - 

Quote

Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.

While the parshmen will definitely be in conflict with the humans i don't think it will be a plain good vs evil type of thing. 

 

Also about whether Dalinar killed the child or not, what if he killed the kid but also did something else which he is worried about? Just saying it is also a possibility. 

[Mulk]

Renarin is like my son, or so I think. My son is high-functioning autistic; I'm of the opinion Renarin is similar, higher functioning and perhaps Asperger's, but on the spectrum regardless.

My son makes a lot of people uncomfortable.  Even me at times.  He doesn't assimilate data like I do, doesn't react to people like I do, worries about the strangest stuff, doesn't emotionally respond like most people are used to, gets overwhelmed by simple things and lets some really big ones just roll off of him.

Anyway.  I bring this up because Renarin's apparent leap forward as a Radiant is exactly how my son has developed over his whole life.  There has been no gradual learning for him (and he's 17 now).  There have been periods of no learning at all, followed by these massive leaps in understanding and adaptability that are unpredictable in both their duration and occurrence.  The more I see of Renarin, the more I like him.  Have to say I was pretty gratified he manifested Regrowth.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Mulk said:

Renarin is like my son, or so I think. My son is high-functioning autistic; I'm of the opinion Renarin is similar, higher functioning and perhaps Asperger's, but on the spectrum regardless.

My son makes a lot of people uncomfortable.  Even me at times.  He doesn't assimilate data like I do, doesn't react to people like I do, worries about the strangest stuff, doesn't emotionally respond like most people are used to, gets overwhelmed by simple things and lets some really big ones just roll off of him.

Anyway.  I bring this up because Renarin's apparent leap forward as a Radiant is exactly how my son has developed over his whole life.  There has been no gradual learning for him (and he's 17 now).  There have been periods of no learning at all, followed by these massive leaps in understanding and adaptability that are unpredictable in both their duration and occurrence.  The more I see of Renarin, the more I like him.  Have to say I was pretty gratified he manifested Regrowth.

My son is only four, but I already relate. 

[Mulk]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

My son is only four, but I already relate. 

brofist, Calderis.  It's a hell of a road, one I don't regret being on, but it is a hard one.  Poke me should you want to chat or hell, just vent.  Finding people with common ground is so damned hard.

[Guest Edonidd]

I read it as Dalinars thoughts and guilt had nothing to do with the boy he just stomped to death.  He felt guilty and hoped Gavilar wouldn't find out that he was (once again) thinking about Navani right before that while talking face to face with his brother.  I guess ill have to reread that chapter, but i didn't for a moment consider he hesitated to kill a kid, nor that he felt ashamed of that at all.

[Aminar]

3 hours ago, robardin said:

I've wondered this too, but then I remember that Gavilar was first in line before him to receive the visions from the Stormfather, which a WoB somewhere has confirmed meant that Gavilar was on the Path of the Bondsmith like Dalinar ultimately went down. Yet as we see in the Eshonai prologue to Oathbringer, he was also a key figure in the Sons of Honor; and to your point, not obviously "broken", just "changing".

What cracks in the soul did Gavilar develop? Guilt over the violence he dealt? Something else?

I have a strong suspicion that Gavilar was an abusive husband and father for a while. I couldn't say whether he got physical or not(I suspect at most much less so than Shallan's father), but Navani and Jasnah both have hinted at it just a little. 

[Daishi5]

The Parshmen are not all changing into stormform, but it seems there is a variety.  

I think the Everstorm broke whatever bond they used in the past to enslave the Parshmen and allowed the Parshmen to bond spren as normal.  I suspect Odium is probably going to drum up a normal war to get both sides to hate each other, then both sides are on his side.  Dalinar doesn't need to unite the kingdoms, he needs to unite the humans and the Parshendi.

[The Invested Beard]

21 minutes ago, Daishi5 said:

The Parshmen are not all changing into stormform, but it seems there is a variety.  

I think the Everstorm broke whatever bond they used in the past to enslave the Parshmen and allowed the Parshmen to bond spren as normal.  I suspect Odium is probably going to drum up a normal war to get both sides to hate each other, then both sides are on his side.  Dalinar doesn't need to unite the kingdoms, he needs to unite the humans and the Parshendi.

I think you may be onto something here.

Edit: Actually the more I think about it, the more and more I'm convinced. I mean what do we know of the Listener gods? They are the unmade. After the Listeners escaped them, where did they go? We know at least some of the Unmade started working on humans, i.e. the Thrill. So really the enemy is a shifting thing. Not Parshendi, not human, but Unmade. That's the realization Dalinar's going to have to come to.

Edited September 19, 2017 by The Invested Beard

[flying_shadow]

A lot of different forms are mentioned in the WOR epigraphs. Perhaps they learned how to take them on?

[DSC01]

30 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I disagree. I think the healing that Renarin enacted was just much stronger than necessary. 

Cosmere healing comes from the Spiritual realm and flows outward. And the Spiritual is a realm of ideals. He saw his Spiritual self. His idealized self, because he was momentarily more fully connected to it by the investiture of the healing. 

That makes sense, but I think the Resonance idea works better. If Shallan hadn't already demonstrated a similar Resonance, I would say, sure--it's probably him seeing his Spiritual self. But since we've already seen something like this, it just makes sense that it would be the same kind of thing. 

Granted, I don't know that we have any official confirmation that Shallan's ability to help better turn into better versions of themselves is her Resonance, so my premise could be off here. However, I am fairly certain that it is, and based on that, I would say that we also saw Renarin's Resonance.

But I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[redbishop]

32 minutes ago, robardin said:

Yep. All signs point to the kid meeting Death by Dalinar. Which, when the Thrill subsided, he is ashamed of.

Yes.  Although no mention was made of the Brightlady's death, just the Brightlord and his heir.  Maybe Dalinar made a deal, and left another dead kid in place of the heir.  Most likely, he killed him with his bare hands.  Brandon just didn't want to write that scene, both because our minds can paint terrible scenes unaided, and because you probably lose a piece of your humanity writing and rewriting a scene where your deuterogonist brutally murders a child.

On the continuing subject of Rhyshadium, rectangular eyes are normally associated with prey animals that are active day and night, and live in rough terrain (goats, sheep, octopuses).  Since we have seen "all birds are chickens" on Roshar, I wonder if "horse" is a broader category.  Maybe Rhyshadium are some enormous draft horse/goat hybrid, much as heraldic unicorns are often depicted to be (minus the horn).

[Ryder]

2 minutes ago, DSC01 said:

That makes sense, but I think the Resonance idea works better. If Shallan hadn't already demonstrated a similar Resonance, I would say, sure--it's probably him seeing his Spiritual self. But since we've already seen something like this, it just makes sense that it would be the same kind of thing. 

Granted, I don't know that we have any official confirmation that Shallan's ability to help better turn into better versions of themselves is her Resonance, so my premise could be off here. However, I am fairly certain that it is, and based on that, I would say that we also saw Renarin's Resonance.

But I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I always thought that Shallan's resonance was her ability to take "memories" of a scene perfectly.  There's that epigraph in WoR that mentions the weird mnemonic abilities of the Lightweavers, which I think is a reference to their resonance.

[Argent]

52 minutes ago, Azul said:

You forgot to add they also have rectangular pupils.  Not sure what it means, other than they have mastered sage mode.

Huh. I had assumed that's fine, since goats have rectangular pupils.