Stormlight Marathon

[Ixthos]

Oh man, I am so far behind with this! Sorry everyone about not taking part, I got half way though the first week and then life jumped on me. And I was taking such detailed notes! I'm going to see if I can catch up over the course of the next week. I've only got ... how many chapters?

... Oh.

 

... Well, lets see what we can do!

Edited September 14, 2020 by Ixthos
how many chapters, not oh many chapters

[Zedseayou]

I've been rereading myself and found this thread, so I thought I'd drop in with some thoughts I had on rereading! This is my first careful reread and I've been catching so many things that I hadn't really noticed before. I think I'm doing the right chapters here...

 

74. Striding the Storm.

In the cubby on the chasm wall, Kaladin's POV:

Quote

He swore he saw an enormous figure walking up there, a glowing inhuman form, followed by another, alien and sleek. Striding the storm. Leg after leg, until the glow passed.

I hadn't noticed this before and didn't find much on a cursory look. This is not how the Stormfather is usually described (as a sky-spanning face). Is this something else? It almost feels like it could be Fleet (from Wit's story when Kaladin is in prison) but striding and running don't match up exactly. What is this thing?

I-13. A Part to Play

It's been shown a few times in Eshonai's POV that Venli defaults to "the songs" when questioned on where she is discovering things about the stormspren and stormform. I read this as implication that Odium sent this information to Venli somehow. This surprises me because IIRC from Oathbringer Venli seems fairly confused by everything that is happening; also how much ability would Odium have to influence things before the Everstorm actually came?

I-14. Taravangian

Referring to Shallan:

Quote

Already they hypothesized that the girl had been trained. If not by Jasnah, then by the girl’s brother, before his death.

What exactly are they talking about here? My first reaction was that they are talking about Surgebinding given the context, but they don't actually seem to know that Shallan or Jasnah had bonded spren. This would also imply that they thought Helaran was a Surgebinder - unlikely since he used regular shards. Perhaps they are talking about secret society stuff instead?

Quote

Visions Gavilar had confided in him six years ago, the night of the Alethi king’s death.

I totally missed that Taravangian was also apparently present at the Kholinar feast! Feels like just about everyone and their mother was there that night. That is, unless this was done by spanreed or something (don't think Gavilar would do that, though). Piques my interest since I don't think we'd seen that from any of the prologue chapters and because it presents a fascinating contrast between Dalinar and Taravangian in their approach to the conflict.

76. The Hidden Blade

I finally picked up for myself that Dalinar is not holding Taln's Honorblade here, especially based on later reactions. This is still crazy to me though - how could Bordin not realise the blade had been swapped? Where did this blade come from?

77. Trust

I really like how Shallan compliments Gaz for getting her a copy of Words of Radiance and how he reacts. Details like that make me more understanding of Gaz's redemption arc; on the first read I was so caught up in Kaladin's POV it was hard to see Gaz differently (and similarly hard to empathize with Elhokar, honestly).

80. To Fight the Rain

When Elhokar comes to Kaladin for advice, he says:

Quote

“When you came, the shadows went away.” “The . . . shadows?” “I saw them in mirrors, in the corners of my eyes. I could swear I even heard them whispering, but you frightened them. I haven’t seen them since. There’s something about you. Don’t try to deny it.”

This is an amazing little bit of foreshadowing. Despite the Oathbringer epilogue I had always kinda assumed that Elhokar was about to bond an honorspren, probably just because that's what the bridgemen had been doing. But it was actually a Cryptic, and this little section that I previously thought was just about paranoia is actually incredibly similar to Shallan's sketching of the symbolheads in Kharbranth, before she accepts Pattern. I understand Elhokar a lot more this time around, though I am now curious what truths or history he has that would attract a Cryptic. I'm not too sure why they'd shy away when Kaladin was around though - because of Syl?

84. The One Who Saves

Even knowing it was coming I was amazed by just how much Kaladin goes through before he can manage the Third Ideal and Syl comes back. Messed up leg, the guards attacks, Moash's brutality...end of the race, indeed.

86. Patterns of Light

I gotta say, I'm not a fan of the revised Kaladin/Szeth scene. "For reasons he could not have articulated" feels especially thrown in and is basically required to avoid a rewrite of the entire sequence, where Kaladin is very clearly trying to kill Szeth. Not to mention that I'm not sure how compatible it is with the entire losing Syl/Elhokar sequence, since Syl doesn't seem to care that he wants to kill Szeth. I do perhaps agree that it aligns better with Elhokar since they establish that Szeth was "following orders" rather than being well-intentioned and trying, but in that case why can't Kaladin just kill him?

88. The Man Who Owned The Winds

A couple things from close reading:

• Is this hint from Mraize the first that we hear of the present-day Skybreakers? Shallan barely acknowledges this, which does make it harder to keep track
• Mraize also uses the word babsk, which is an interesting choice since I don't think we've gotten any Thaylen hints about him before.
• This almost feels like a particularly direct precursor to Shallan splitting personalities - he directly asks for it. There are hints about it throughout the book, of course, but "Let Veil come to us" is a major shift in how Shallan thinks about the persona.
• "Mother calling Shallan one of them" - does this mean Surgebinders? Why would she know about, let alone hate surgebinders and what exactly would Shallan have done already to manifest that? The Lightweaver progression must be very different than the Windrunner one, or perhaps Shallan is just unique.

89. The Four

• What's the plague in the Purelake? Has that been mentioned before?
• Dalinar also mentions having drawn in Stormlight before, but I couldn't figure out where in the Narak battle this actually happens. There doesn't seem to be a smoking gun - perhaps just the way he fights Szeth is particularly graceful or fast?
• I wish Renarin talked more. They seem to just not explore what he can do very much until the reveal at the end of Oathbringer comes through; it feels a little sitcom-like where this prong of the plot is totally dependent on people just not talking to each other. He reveals he's a Truthwatcher but none of them ask about this experience discovering that, or anything that might give them a hint about how Glys is supposed to look/what powers he's supposed to have?

Epilogue: Art and Expectation

• I like that Wit gets the epilogues. It always makes them intriguing.
• Is there something Invested or otherwise special about the Ryshadium that surprised him?
• I realise that we don't really get to hear what Jasnah was up to the whole time in Shadesmar. She made quite a disturbance, was able to talk to the highspren among other things. Perhaps she was biding her time in there to put the assassins off the trail, but given the time sensitivity there must have been other things she wanted to do in there...
• Wit and Jasnah have quite a rapport. She must know that he is pretty atypical but doesn't seem to push very hard. I wish we got more of the conversation back to the warcamps!

[Mistbornwithakitty]

Heya!!  I was in the UK, so I've not had time to post, but I'm starting on Oathbreaker tomorrow!!  Always enjoy reading your posts, I'll comment more later when I'm not so beat.  Hope you're all enjoying the marathon!