Book Summary for Oathbringer

[Ammanas]

http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com/ProductDetailPage.aspx?sku=076532637X

In Oathbringer, the third volume of the New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, the War of Reckoning comes to a sudden and destructive close as a new, far greater threat appears on the field of battle, kindled by the deadly Everstorm.

Dalinar and the Alethi forces take refuge in the legendary tower city of Urithiru, once home to the lost Knights Radiant. There, he and the newly raised Radiants must explore the mysteries of the legendary city to understand and train their powers. In doing so they must also face long-lost truths that could upend everything they think they know.

Humanity faces a new Desolation, and with the return of the Voidbringers, an enemy as great in number as in their thirst for vengeance, the world of Roshar will never be the same. Unless the nations unite behind Dalinar, putting aside his blood-soaked past, even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization.

Edited January 20, 2017 by Ammanas
Confusion over thread title

[Oversleep]

That's not the book blurb. That's summary.

SA blurbs are in-world texts.

I actually thought there was one released :<

Edited January 20, 2017 by Oversleep

[Ammanas]

@Oversleep

I have always used them interchangeable, but I'll change it to avoid confusion. Thanks

[Spoolofwhool]

I'm sad now. I'm was looking forward for the Sleepless' next discourse on what was happening. 

[Pagerunner he/him]

Now that you mention it, Amazon has a book description as well, which goes a little more in-depth:

Quote

In Oathbringer, the third volume of the New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe with numbers as great as their thirst for vengeance.

Dalinar Kholin’s Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.

Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar’s blood-soaked past and stand together―and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past―even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization.

 

[Spoolofwhool]

I wonder what dark secret is in the depths of Urithriu. Perhaps the secret which destroyed the Radiants that Taravangian learned?

[Argent he/him]

I don't need this kind of hype 10 months before release!

[Rasarr she/her]

Dalinar didn't even unite Alethkar yet, and he's already planning to unite the world? Well, he sure has the work cut out for him. Taravangian will be annoyed, though.

And Kaladin's plotline seems like it's going to be interesting... an ex-slave who's now put on the opposite side of the fence. I bet you he'll feel very stupid when he realizes that the Parshmen are just like you, man!  Brandon seems to be growing fond about confronting Kal with his own predjudices, so I predict a subplot of Kaladin treating turned Parshmen like dirt until he finally realizes that yeah, he's been in that position to, and yeah, he was pretty pissed, too. 

[Jaconis]

Yeah, that's not where I was expecting his plot to go, but it's good. I was expecting more with him confronting Roshone, and trying to figure out what to do with him. This is better, as the Roshone plot would be a little too close to what he faced in WoR.

Regardless, I'm very excited to learn more about Dalinar's past, and for the book in general!

[Erandeni he/him]

I thought Kaladin's subplot would be about leading, as he goes to his home, and later to Kholinar, two places in chaos.

I am really excited to see the Blackthorn in all his glory, and now I am hyped about what Urithriu's secrets can be.

Edited January 20, 2017 by Idealistic Mistborn
Misspelling

[Jaconis]

8 minutes ago, Idealistic Mistborn said:

I am really excited to see the Blackthorn in all his glory, and now I am hyped about what Urithriu's secrets can be.

Whatever they are, if Brandon's previous works are any indication, we'll be left with a dozen new questions for every answer we get.

[maxal she/her]

This is interesting, even if not much to go by. It certainly is one of those "generic book description" which Brandon didn't write: he said as much on Reddit.m It however gives us a few clues as to what Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar might be up to in the upcoming book.

For my part, I have little surprise in hearing Shallan's story arc will deal with her uncovering secrets in the city and dealing with the Ghostblood: this is basically what we have all been expecting. Shallan's future hasn't been a widely discussed subject, either here or elsewhere on the fandom. My thoughts have always been there isn't much to discuss as we can't possibly know what she'll find which more or less trumps all discussion before it even starts. I however do hope her story arc won't solely be about her sneaking around, investigating and infiltrating secret societies because I personally find such narrative to be boring. I didn't like it with Marasi in SoS, so if Shallan goes there, she might go down a notch for me, as a character. So hopefully, she's got interesting stuff going on other than just wandering around in disguises.

I also have little surprise in hearing Dalinar will soon realize he needs to unite the whole world. I expected this to happen. This ought to be interesting, especially if he has to deal with his in-laws in Rira. My hopes are his story will be dynamic and not static. I am fine with Dalinar talking as if he were above everyone else, but in small doses. Now he is getting the star treatment, I expect his story arc to be about more than just politics. Either way, his personal relationships are probably what I am the most interested in reading. Being a character reader, I find characters interesting when they interact one with another, so I hope Dalinar will do a lot of that, especially with his sons, both of them.

I was however slightly surprised by the hint pertaining Kaladin's arc wanting it to be about dealing with Parshmen. This isn't something we have previously discussed. While we all expected his homecoming to be featured, recent news stated this arc would be small and tied up rapidly. I was personally happy to hear about it as I personally didn't feel too strongly about Kaladin spending his time in Heartstone reassessing the past endlessly. I am keen to see him move on, progress, move forward and yeah dealing with how he views people, how others view other people is core central to his character. I am thus happy to learn part of his arc will feature this aspect and not leading his small town. This is actually good news for me: I have been hoping for a twist on Kaladin as I found the character too static after WoR. I hope this will be it.

So here were my thoughts. I am still hoping to snatch clues with respect to other characters.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

The Kaladin-Parshmen thing was foreshadowed in WoR though. Remember the part when Rlain commented on how he was Bridge Fours slave?

[maxal she/her]

47 minutes ago, Chull #445 said:

The Kaladin-Parshmen thing was foreshadowed in WoR though. Remember the part when Rlain commented on how he was Bridge Fours slave?

Yes you are right, but somehow nobody caught on it. All discussions we ever had on Kaladin's future story arc revolved around his time in Heartstone, how he would deal with Roshone and his family, him potentially seeking his parents if they aren't in Heartstone, him herding Heartstone to Kholinar (which is something I'd disagree would/should happen) and finally Kaladin heading to Kholinar and quell the rebellion or fuel it.

I do not recall anyone making the comment his story arc might be about dealing with the Parshmen. I personally always figured it would be part of Dalinar's story arc as it made sense. A tiny small part of wish has also wished Adolin would be the one to help the rogue Parshendis to redeem themselves, you know with the whole

Spoiler

"I will listen"

thing. It fitted brilliantly, but I dare not hope for much for his character anymore.

I however never thought it would be Kaladin's arc. 

Edited January 21, 2017 by maxal

[Kered he/him]

51 minutes ago, maxal said:

Yes you are right, but somehow nobody caught on it. All discussions we ever had on Kaladin's future story arc revolved around his time in Heartstone, how he would deal with Roshone and his family, him potentially seeking his parents if they aren't in Heartstone, him herding Heartstone to Kholinar (which is something I'd disagree would/should happen) and finally Kaladin heading to Kholinar and quell the rebellion or fuel it.

I do not recall anyone making the comment his story arc might be about dealing with the Parshmen. I personally always figured it would be part of Dalinar's story arc as it made sense. A tiny small part of wish has also wished Adolin would be the one to help the rogue Parshendis to redeem themselves, you know with the whole

  Hide contents

"I will listen"

thing. It fitted brilliantly, but I dare not hope for much for his character anymore.

I however never thought it would be Kaladin's arc. 

Yes, my line of thinking would be that it would be a part of Adolins arc. I thought of it as Adolins way to possibly attract a nahel bond. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen anymore, so now it's going to be Kaladin's "struggle".

[maxal she/her]

2 minutes ago, KereDerek said:

Yes, my line of thinking would be that it would be a part of Adolins arc. I thought of it as Adolins way to possibly attract a nahel bond. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen anymore, so now it's going to be Kaladin's "struggle".

I have mixed feelings about this. I do like the idea of Kaladin having to deal with the Parshmen, having to weight in his perception of "slavery" and of others, seeing good and bad came come up in all people: those who are labelled as slaves might not all be poor victims just as those a the top aren't all deserving it. He had taken steps towards the later, but he has yet to acknowledge the later. This, in its essence, is an interesting story arc for Kaladin.

The rogue Parshendis and Eshonai are another matter... Kaladin has no stories with them whatsoever if only through Rlain, but even then. Adolin is the one having a history with Eshonai, so if someone walks on her path again, I would expect it would be him. Adolin is the one she talks to on the battlefield, he is the one who meets her on the Plains and he is the one who defeated her. I also find he is the most appropriate character to bond with those rogue Parshendis: Adolin would manage to blend in more easily than Kaladin, I suspect he would learn their language much easier and he is already wired to listen to others. He also has the means and the standing to actually do something about it, not to forget Eshonai has history with the Kholins, so it fitted. I expected it would be part of Adolin's arc right before Brandon more or less killed the character on a narrative point of view

But hey expecting much out of Adolin's character has run out of fashion. This being said having Kaladin's story arc merge with Eshonai and have him take up this role seems wrong to me: it shouldn't be Kaladin's arc. Dealing with the Parshmen slaves, yes, dealing with the rogue Parshendis and Eshonai, no. Oh well, I'll admit the whole Parshendi story arc basically was the last hope I had for Adolin to play a more or less significant role into the story: I guess based on the rules of narrative, this has to go to Kaladin.

So yeah, mixed feelings.

[Siaun Sanche she/her]

If these aren't written by Brandon Sanderson, I wouldn't assume that they're that descriptive of what the character arcs in Oathbringer are really centered. I wouldn't assume that the person who wrote this copy has read the full manuscript, for example. We know that Kaladin is going back to help his family and it seems logical to imagine that he'll have to deal with the Parshendi there and his feelings about that, but that doesn't mean that his arc over the whole book is Parshendi-centric.

[kari-no-sugata]

Regarding what Shallan could be up to: I'm sure she'll be multi-tasking as always but for her main/official task, the description in the summary does follow-on from things that were set up previously. Remember that Jasnah wanted to find original sources in Urithiru that hadn't been tampered with. Shallan should be interested in making more sense of the in-world Words of Radiance book. How much is there in Urithiru and how much is readable after all these years is another matter, though the climate should help with preservation. Navani and Shallan (with Pattern) are both working on learning to read Dawnchant which I'm sure will pay off at some point. It might seem redundant to have two characters arrive at this from two different angles but it's actually really handy in terms of validating the understanding - if two separate people using two different methods can translate the same text in a similar way then that would significantly improve the trust in the translation.

[Andy92]

I'm interested to see what becomes of Elhokar. He was already having a hard enough time ruling in his father's shadow, and now that Dalinar and others are becoming Radiants, that only seems to make things more difficult for him. I'm interested to see if his character grows, or if he ends up failing under the weight of feeling like an inadequate ruler. 

[Steeldancer he/him]

Speaking of elkohar, the shadows he sees... they sound a lot like the cryptics shallan sees in WoK. Which is interesting. Because what kind of secrets and lies is elkohar holding in? He does seem a bit of a broken man of sorts

[+Wax he/him]

Interestingly, it says, "an enemy as great in number".

 

l think it sounds like overwhelming numbers.  So, I am guessing, not only parshmen but other people also get affected?

[kari-no-sugata]

On 27/01/2017 at 1:38 AM, The Flash said:

Speaking of elkohar, the shadows he sees... they sound a lot like the cryptics shallan sees in WoK. Which is interesting. Because what kind of secrets and lies is elkohar holding in? He does seem a bit of a broken man of sorts

When tWoK was released, Brandon's original plan was for Jasnah and Shallan to both reach the Shattered Plains safely, but then he realised that it was necessary to separate them. If that hadn't have happened, then I suspect we would have seen Jasnah investigate what was happening with Elhokar.

This could easily come up again in "Oathbringer", since Elhokar should react to seeing Pattern, leading to Shallan investigating this.

[Humpty he/him]

I couldn't agree more Maxal with the Kaladin storyline hopes.. If he spends one more second whining about his past I might just pull my own hair out.  I would like to just shake the piss out of the idiot and tell him to stop blaming the "lighteyes" for his problems. If his own father hadn't stolen a bunch of spheres his life might not have turned out so bad. Even if Roshone still was a jerk to his family all his stupid father had to do was umm MOVE to a different town for christ sake.  Or if he hadn't lead his spear squad into almost certain death by attacking a Shardbearer. And then refusing the shards he should have at least claimed them and then gave them away afterward away from Amaram. I find it almost comical that he blames almost everyone for his problems yet doesn't blame himself or his stubborn father.