[OB] Oathbringer chapters 13-15

[frozndevl]

19 minutes ago, Stark said:

The part that nearly broke me was in Kaladin's chapter:

They just found freedom after millenia of being mentally neutered.  And they are stuck out in the rain, with no real skills.  No fires to cook with, not for lack of trying.  Eating soggy grains that have not been boiled because they have nothing else.  And all the skills they do have are low maintenance slave duties.

 

This is freedom.

 

My biggest fear, if Kaladin does manage to bring them to the safety of Urithiru as an independent society to be protected, that they will fall back into third class menial labor for the Alethi...  I really hope Kaladin can work with them to find a solution that allows them to have meaningful lives to go with their freedom rather than this rather depressing tableau we are shown.

 

Playing cards in the rain, because the masters found it fun, hoping to remember the rules.  Right in the feels.

I just had a thought... Kaladin could start to teach them some of the skills, and in doing so could become something of a saint to them. If we follow this thread to it's completely ludicrous conclusion, he fights to defend all of the Parshmen/Parshendi/Listeners from the horrible bad evil humans and becomes Odium's champion by nature of his actions, not his intent to destroy Roshar. Windrunners are one of the martial orders, if not the most martial order, so it could happen....

[platnumkid]

1 hour ago, Kalinovsky said:

May Aladar is mentioned again. There's definitely something here...

Kal-adar maybe???

 

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

So... does it mean dividing by zero becomes acceptable in human society after performing proper rituals?

Yes it does!  It's just that the rituals are soo complicated no one has managed to perform them yet.

[mariapapadia]

Also, the epigraphs got me really annoyed this week. It feels like whoever is writing the book is dragging things and finding so many excuses, that no actual point is being made. 15 chapters into the book and we're nowhere close to learn something about the author

[Agent34]

1 minute ago, mariapapadia said:

Also, the epigraphs got me really annoyed this week. It feels like whoever is writing the book is dragging things and finding so many excuses, that no actual point is being made. 15 chapters into the book and we're nowhere close to learn something about the author

Spoiler

It's not like Mistborn's ones were crystal clear.

 

[frozndevl]

3 minutes ago, Nashan'Elin said:

Pattern is certainly an enthusiastic chaperone, though maybe not so much of an effective one. As funny as the "no mating" thing is, it also shows us that he's learning more about humans and their customs, able to figure out what Shallan meant by "innapropriate", even though it took him a little while

I had this thought earlier, but you nailed it; Pattern is able to figure things out. I think this points out the key difference between Nightblood and the Shardblades. As a robot spren, Nightblood doesn't seem to be able to proceed past his initial programming, whereas the sentient and sapient spren, actually being alive, are able to do so. Nothing has changed, but I think this makes Nightblood, relatively, that much MORE dangerous since he will always be "let's destroy some evil today" while our spren-blades have some conscious thought to them that could halt them. And they (the spren) are able to detect nuance and be more discerning in their work.

[Stark]

7 minutes ago, frozndevl said:

Kaladin could start to teach them some of the skills,

Allright kids.  You're now Bridge zero.  Make some spears.  Lets go off to the chasms to whip you into shape.

The first thing to remember is that it is okay to care.

Also, you're all my squires now.

Edited September 26, 2017 by Stark

[Aleksiel]

Pattern is hilarious, these were some of the funniest chapters Brandon has written. 

And we got some foreshadowing in favor of Adolin reviving his Blade. It was so nice seeing him being open minded about women using Blades and sharing his passion with Shallan, who couldn't help but get offended while thinking all darkeyes are peasants  Oh, Shallan... Do Forge a less classist version of yourself... 

[Daishi5]

1 minute ago, Aleksiel said:

Pattern is hilarious, these were some of the funniest chapters Brandon has written. 

And we got some foreshadowing in favor of Adolin reviving his Blade. It was so nice seeing him being open minded about women using Blades and sharing his passion with Shallan, who couldn't help but get offended while thinking all darkeyes are peasants  Oh, Shallan... Do Forge a less classist version of yourself... 

Adolin was kind of being sexist in his own way even as he pushes past it. 

[Emerald101]

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

So... does it mean dividing by zero becomes acceptable in human society after performing proper rituals?

You see, we take the limit of (f(x+h)-f(x))/h as h approaches zero . . .

[WhiteLeeopard]

27 minutes ago, Stark said:

The part that nearly broke me was in Kaladin's chapter:

They just found freedom after millenia of being mentally neutered.  And they are stuck out in the rain, with no real skills.  No fires to cook with, not for lack of trying.  Eating soggy grains that have not been boiled because they have nothing else.  And all the skills they do have are low maintenance slave duties.

 

This is freedom.

 

My biggest fear, if Kaladin does manage to bring them to the safety of Urithiru as an independent society to be protected, that they will fall back into third class menial labor for the Alethi...  I really hope Kaladin can work with them to find a solution that allows them to have meaningful lives to go with their freedom rather than this rather depressing tableau we are shown.

 

Playing cards in the rain, because the masters found it fun, hoping to remember the rules.  Right in the feels

This. Poor parshendi (I'm not sure what to call these non-voidbringers yet, so will stick with parshendi till I find out official name). I could see Kaladin becoming their champion/leader. But he would first need to get rid of the voidspren (I'm pretty sure its a Voidspren, shrill voice, fools?). It might be they have a voidbringer or a few on the tents, and they are bound to the voidspren, leading the group. And if Kaladin got rid of their leaders at the moment it won't be a great way to make headway. I'm not sure if Voidbringers could detect Radiants, I'm going to go with no since Shallan and Kaladin never noticed each other. Only time Syl looked up was during the duel, and both spren were highly active at the time.

I could see Kaladin taking the parshendi to Urithiru under his protection, its supposedly huge, he could get a section of the city for them. But its true with their low skills it might be hard for them to make headway. And I wouldn't be surprised if given the choice between becoming 3rd rate workers for their slavers or becoming Voidbringers and killing their slavers they would pick option 2. Most at least.

[Toaster Retribution]

Pattern should seriously get an award of some kind.

Also, wonder if Nightblood will interest himself in human relationships as well? That would be... interesting. 

[mariapapadia]

11 minutes ago, Agent34 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

It's not like Mistborn's ones were crystal clear.

 

haha! true, but I feel like I'm more invested in this and the Mistborn ones where giving out more general information, not only justifications 

[Salkara]

2 minutes ago, Emerald101 said:

You see, we take the limit of (f(x+h)-f(x))/h as h approaches zero . . .

( ꖘ ͜ʖ ꖘ ) Go on...

 

2 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Also, wonder if Nightblood will interest himself in human relationships as well? That would be... interesting. 

I wonder if Nightblood can form a bond with his wielder, and thus limit (or exacerbate) some of the nastier side effects of using him.

[yulerule]

1 minute ago, mariapapadia said:

haha! true, but I feel like I'm more invested in this and the Mistborn ones where giving out more general information, not only justifications 

I feel that the epigraphs now seem to contain basically no information, but looking back, they will be info -rich.

[Aleksiel]

3 minutes ago, mariapapadia said:

Also, the epigraphs got me really annoyed this week. It feels like whoever is writing the book is dragging things and finding so many excuses, that no actual point is being made. 15 chapters into the book and we're nowhere close to learn something about the author

I wonder if it will be one of the books Adolin just handed to Shallan. A book by the Sunmaker seems important enough for Jasnah and Navani to have made him study it, so I'm sticking to my pet theory the Sunmaker is the author and Shallan finds it in Urithiru  Just not the way I initially thought she would come across it.

 

1 minute ago, Daishi5 said:

Adolin was kind of being sexist in his own way even as he pushes past it. 

I wouldn't say that. Of course, you can always be like Shallan and paint it negatively. Adolin suggested reconsidering social norms in general. Very... edgedancer-ish of him, like his dead Blade that could become a little alive when Shallan touches it. Boy, this got so equivocal  

[king of nowhere]

18 minutes ago, mariapapadia said:

Also, the epigraphs got me really annoyed this week. It feels like whoever is writing the book is dragging things and finding so many excuses, that no actual point is being made. 15 chapters into the book and we're nowhere close to learn something about the author

Well, give it a bit of time. In epigraphs, it had been 15 chapters, but in the actual oathbringer book, it was 3-4 sentences.

As a mental exercice, try to take a sanderbook - even a short story, like sixth of the dusk - and divide it into small sentences, one or two lines at most. then put them as epigraphs of another book. Then be annoyed at how long it took sanderson to get to the point.

[Hischier]

Too short!

When you get 3 chapters a week it's easy to forget that things take a while to build up in these books.  I keep waiting for something big to happen and then remember, 'oh right, this is still part 1'.  

13: Some nice moments for the Shadolin crowd, with an inauspicious ending to that chapter.

Quote

“Neither of us is going to mess this up,” she said to him, squeezing his hand. “Despite what might at times seem like our best efforts otherwise.”

“Promise?” he asked.

“I promise. Let’s look at this notebook of yours and see what it says about our murderer.”

If ending the chapter like that isn't foreshadowing, I don't know what is.  

Also, I was really hoping we'd get to see Veil in action. I wish we'd got an acknowledgement of how much her powers have progressed though.  

14: Too Short! I think there's been enough hinting about the Parshmen to not be surprised by them not being Voidbringers. I didn't expect them to be playing cards though.  And what's up with the spren? I don't think it's a Radiant spren, it seems way too early for that to happen.  

15: It's apparent that Shallan still has a lot to work through. I'd call the different personas more extreme method acting than DID (which btw, is a condition that's met with a heavy amount of skepticism in the field of psychology, even if it makes for some interesting fiction). I like the idea that it has to do with her surges though, much like her ability to make people see a different version of themselves, only applied to herself. As a lot of people already mentioned, it's interesting that the Cryptics would just send someone else if Shallan kills Pattern, I don't think it would work for Kaladin.  

[+Spicker]

1 hour ago, kari-no-sugata said:

She deliberately made the blade blunt. In which case it doesn't cut... it see

Ok duh, I don't know why this didn't connect for me. So I guess this isn't any confirmation one way or the other of Blade cutting the stone.

I mostly think it would cut it, we have no reason to think otherwise. But with how weird the stone is, I wouldn't be surprised if we find out they can't cut through the rock. Maybe it has some aluminum in it? 

On a related note, I really think that there is some type of prison in urithiru that can contain shardbearers, which might become relevant. Is there any mention of KR betraying their spren before the recreance? Like, did a singular KR ever create a shard blade before the mass betrayal? Or do we have information that the recreance was the first time it happened? Would the KR ever have needed to punish/isolate someone with a Blade?

[Elena]

29 minutes ago, SLNC said:

I think it because I feel like, that she already is losing her grip on her identity. Managing multiple identities doesn't help it. And let's face it: her carefree demeanor is just a facade. She is mentally unstable.

i someone figures what is going on and gives her the support she needs

[sooyangi]

1 hour ago, Bcknight2 said:

The listeners all communicated verbally with each other... they just have acces to the shared rythms, which allowed them to coordinate actions more easily...

Also I'm not sure we can call this group of former parshmen 'listeners' since Kal didn't mention any 'sing-song' quality to their speech, they may not have access to the rythms.

Oooh okay that makes a lot more sense. Also that's a great point! 

[yulerule]

2 minutes ago, Spicker said:

Ok duh, I don't know why this didn't connect for me. So I guess this isn't any confirmation one way or the other of Blade cutting the stone.

I mostly think it would cut it, we have no reason to think otherwise. But with how weird the stone is, I wouldn't be surprised if we find out they can't cut through the rock. Maybe it has some aluminum in it? 

On a related note, I really think that there is some type of prison in urithiru that can contain shardbearers, which might become relevant. Is there any mention of KR betraying their spren before the recreance? Like, did a singular KR ever create a shard blade before the mass betrayal? Or do we have information that the recreance was the first time it happened? Would the KR ever have needed to punish/isolate someone with a Blade?

Adolin cut Urithru after killing Sadeas to get rid of the mark he made on the wall while exploring.

[Aleksiel]

1 minute ago, Elena said:

i someone figures what is going on and gives her the support she needs

May be Renarin could show her some perfect image of herself if he unconsciously uses his surges on her like he did with Adolin.

[Hischier]

19 minutes ago, Aleksiel said:

Pattern is hilarious, these were some of the funniest chapters Brandon has written. 

And we got some foreshadowing in favor of Adolin reviving his Blade. It was so nice seeing him being open minded about women using Blades and sharing his passion with Shallan, who couldn't help but get offended while thinking all darkeyes are peasants  Oh, Shallan... Do Forge a less classist version of yourself... 

I'd cut her some slack. You have centuries of both religious and social constructs to break through. That doesn't happen overnight.  

[sonwarrior01]

Quote

Radiant stood in what felt like a very stiff pose, Blade held before herself in two hands. She’d only scraped Pattern on the ceiling two or three times; fortunately, most of the rooms in Urithiru had high ceilings.

I find it interesting that while in the persona of Brightness Radiant Shallan has no problem referring to her blade as Pattern. In all other cases seen so far she has refused to acknowledge that Pattern and the blade are one in the same. This is probably due to the calculating nature of Brightness Radiant (and principally the reason that she created it). However, it shows that she knows the two are the same. I think this will become important as a way to either break Shallan apart so that she can no longer mentally function or as a way to unify the whole and have a healthier relationship with Pattern. 

[Darvys]

Just now, yulerule said:

Adolin cut Urithru after killing Sadeas to get rid of the mark he made on the wall while exploring.

He scratched off the chalk marking only, not the wall i think.