[OB] Oathbringer chapters 10-12

[+robardin]

3 hours ago, Darkness said:

I know that Gawx was more assertive than the viziers had thought he would be, but it's still completely possible that the viziers have basically taken over Azir. The response Dalinar got from Yanagawn sounded way too bureaucratic to be Gawx by himself. I'm thinking the viziers are currently obfuscating the political climate and Gawx has very little real power.

I agree, the tenor of the Azish Spanreed Correspondence didn't sound like Gawx - it's a "representative". The question is, was that due to:

• (A) A usurpation of power (deliberate sidestepping of Gawx)
• (B) Gawx explicitly having delegated the discussion with Dalinar, because He Couldn't Be Bothered
• (C) A substitution out of necessity (Gawx was Seriously Indisposed or Busy Doing Something Else At The Last Minute) where the viziers didn't want to admit what was up with Gawx to a foreign leader

Option A doesn't seem right; from what we saw in Edgedancer, at least, it seems Gawx really is respected as the Prime Aqasix and not just a figurehead (indeed, he had always been Prime...). And while a "freeze out" of Gawx is imaginable, if they didn't start out that way from Day One, it hasn't been long enough (I think) for them to start doing this sort of thing. It'd start with some core group browbeating Gawx more and more with "let us handle this", and Gawx would have a second group of favor seekers pushing him to push back (or act) against them ("be your own man - and think about THIS angle we've got while you're being your own man").

Option B doesn't seem right, either, also from what we saw in Edgedancer, Gawx is actually doing ruling type stuff as Prime and not just feasting while his advisors do the administrating.

So if it's Option C, what would be more important or more distracting to Gawx than keeping a spanreed appointment to talk to Dalinar? Maybe we'll find out when a Lift POV is Chapter 13 next week?!

Man, Sanderson's books are NOT meant to be read serially! -- Or perhaps, they are. I'm finally gaining insight into how it felt to read stuff like Dickens' Great Expecatations as they were published chapter by chapter back in the 19th Century. Chapter cliffhangers that last a week (or a month) instead of the time it takes to turn a page!

Edited September 21, 2017 by robardin

[heridfel]

4 hours ago, robardin said:

I agree, the tenor of the Azish Spanreed Correspondence didn't sound like Gawx - it's a "representative". The question is, was that due to:

• (A) A usurpation of power (deliberate sidestepping of Gawx)
• (B) Gawx explicitly having delegated the discussion with Dalinar, because He Couldn't Be Bothered
• (C) A substitution out of necessity (Gawx was Seriously Indisposed or Busy Doing Something Else At The Last Minute) where the viziers didn't want to admit what was up with Gawx to a foreign leader

I don't know: would you consider the possibility that the Voidbringers (or a group allied with them) have infiltrated the spanreed as a subset of A, or its own thing? I agree that Gawx probably would not have responded in that fashion unless he was totally captured by the system, but it isn't as though there is something in place to authenticate who is using a spanreed beyond handwriting analysis. Even that wouldn't really help because scribes are getting replaced all the time - the whole "men don't need to know how to read and write" thing really bites them in the butt there.

[+robardin]

29 minutes ago, heridfel said:

I don't know: would you consider the possibility that the Voidbringers (or a group allied with them) have infiltrated the spanreed as a subset of A, or its own thing? 

I don't think that would fit the nature of the communication. First, few Listeners knew Alethi at all, and the style was that distinctly Azish style of Fogspeak that would be difficult to mimic on short notice without practice or training; and second, the whole oops-we-said-too-much backtracking they did wouldn't fit that either. 

Yes, you could construct a plausible scenario like how these were the Azish's own parshmen slaves made intelligent that were on the other end of the spanreed somehow, who would've had many years to absorb their language patterns, and the "oopsie" was an intentional slip meant as a ruse.

But I think that'd be over-investing in that angle, versus the simpler plot-building rationale that we're about to see What's Going On In Azir with a Lift POV that results in absorbing Gawx's full and personal attention - since the last POV we had of her in Edgedancer had her heading that way.

I mean, we haven't seen any evidence of secret cabals of humans working with Voidbringers, especially when VBs have only reappeared at all in the past two weeks or so!

[RYANHOME]

I can see it now syl wearing a big brimmed hat with a rooster feather. Big gold chains around her neck. Full length fur coat. A cane in one hand a big chalice with SYL BEAUTIFUL spelled in diamonds in the other and every town they go to she's like hey hey lady's look at my man over here just one emerald broam and he's your for the night. Lol (SUPER FLY SYL IN THE HOUSE)

Edited September 21, 2017 by RYANHOME

[heridfel]

19 minutes ago, robardin said:

I don't think that would fit the nature of the communication. First, few Listeners knew Alethi at all, and the style was that distinctly Azish style of Fogspeak that would be difficult to mimic on short notice without practice or training; and second, the whole oops-we-said-too-much backtracking they did wouldn't fit that either. 

Yes, you could construct a plausible scenario like how these were the Azish's own parshmen slaves made intelligent that were on the other end of the spanreed somehow, who would've had many years to absorb their language patterns, and the "oopsie" was an intentional slip meant as a ruse.

But I think that'd be over-investing in that angle, versus the simpler plot-building rationale that we're about to see What's Going On In Azir with a Lift POV that results in absorbing Gawx's full and personal attention - since the last POV we had of her in Edgedancer had her heading that way.

I mean, we haven't seen any evidence of secret cabals of humans working with Voidbringers, especially when VBs have only reappeared at all in the past two weeks or so!

On the other hand, we've got a few examples of parshmen-cum-Voidbringers acting in unusual ways (stealing boats, etc.) which don't line up with the behavior of Listeners, and we know that there are some Listener forms which exist but haven't been shown on screen. Mediationform and smokeform both could assist with gaining illicit access to a spanreed and faking correspondences.

Also, we have seen a cabal of humans who were trying to bring back the Voidbringers as part of a convoluted way to return the Heralds. It's not a big step from there to a cabal which wants to work with them for reasons, even petty ones.

I don't view this as the most likely of the scenarios - if anything, "Gawx was doing something else" would get my vote because he would be involved with any negotiations with Voidbringers, and that would be a more immediate priority - but I don't think we have evidence to contradict it from what we've seen so far.

[Slothspren]

Few thoughts about these chapters. 

• Its finally good to see happy kaladin, and him voicing my long-held thoughts about his own privacy being obliterated if he ever got a chance to get laid. That being said if I were him then even the thought of her buzzing around while I took a dump would have killed me.
• The whole thing with the villagers looked like a scam to ripoff kaladin but was confirmed to be true later, which is spooky. Also there is some WoB saying stormform is not actually voidform as we assume normally, so there is that.
• I was really glad to see those absurd theories regarding Renarin put to rest. and FINALLY he did regrowth on adolin. 
• I really hope what he did to adolin with that vision was kinda like gold/malatium vision, but instead of "what could have been" it focuses on the future i.e what he can become some day.  Renarin being a truthwatcher I really hope what he showed Adolin is true future of Adolin.
• I think the minor point that Dalinar asked to delay the whole knee-bending stuff will come to play in future, as that could have immediately put Adolin as the new highprince, but since its delayed now then it may never happen. Adolin might have to relinquish his title for what he did and maybe lose his blade, though I hope not since he is very close to his blade and himself realized that.
• Dalinar probably spooked the Thaylen queen when he asked about sending his radiants in order to teach the new ones and bring them into the fold of Urithiru. Why should she let an outsider take away her new fine breed of knights? 
•  Not to mention I am really REALLY hating Dalinar being so possessive about Radiants and Kaladin being so subservient to him. They are both Radiants and by the KR law they are both equals from different orders. And the fate of that Honorblade should be decided by Kaladin not Dalinar, it is a Windrunner blade which belongs to the patron of their order. Ideally it should be locked away in Windrunner custody. 
• That Elhokar entry had me like oh boy here we go again.. then I was internally screaming all NONONONO when he pledged but it resolved nicely so I am happy for him. 
• Really curious about whats Mr.T up to. He knows secrets, so its not beyond him to know the secret of oath-gates and maybe fake some radiant (by using some clever fabrials to open the gate) or trick a real one into following him. He may have changed his mind about Dalinar for now but eventually there will be clash between them. Because hopefully the Skybreakers will be coming soon to Urithiru, and along with them our beloved crazy killing machine. It would be nice seeing Mr. T shitting his pants again. 
• Or maybe even before they make an entry Shallan will discover the truth since the Ghostbloods probably know the truth about him and Diagram already. 
• It would be interesting to see how Mr. T deceives Renarin, assuming seeing the truth behind deception is one of Truthwatcher's abilities. 

Finally, this.

On 9/19/2017 at 8:08 PM, The Invested Beard said:

- Kaladin's stuff felt kind of like filler except for a little tiny confirmation of the theory that lesser spren will become shardplate. The mechanism is a little different than most of us thought but it looks like it'll happen in this book or the next.

I saw several mentions of this as if its finally clarified  and then I re-read the whole part and did not see any mention of sprens being converted into plates. From what I read Stormfather gave them sentience and Kaladin asked Syl if she could try doing the same, i.e give sentience to other windspren and help him create more windrunner or elevate his squires into the order.

On unrelated note: : WHY in Damnation did Taravangian and Gavilar come to same conclusion? I mean we get it that Gavilar was having visions, probably the same one Dalinar is having now but how the did he conclude from them that : He must bring the desolation back, which is the opposite of what he should have been trying to do.

And similarly AFTER his death Taravangian went to Nightwatcher and asked for the capacity to save the world, and AGAIN he came to the same conclusion that the world must be destroyed first and they must unleash the voidbringers again. In case of Gavilar I could have assumed his supposedly misguided quest to unleash the desolation and voidbringers in order to force the Heralds to come forward, but what's Taravangian's end goal ?

Edited September 21, 2017 by Slothspren
Shallan's potential discovery of Diagram.

[kari-no-sugata]

Clearly diplomacy is going to take some time to establish. I think it's quite natural for anyone to be nervous at what could go wrong with Dalinar asking for a nice portal to be opened in the middle of your city. In addition, I think Dalinar is pushing too hard too fast and thinking too much about things from a military perspective and also immediately asking the king to come over.

What's a better way to start diplomatic relations then though? There's many but I would start with "cultural exchange". For example, Shallan could ask for permission for a public tour of the city in the name of cultural exchange and art, and someone else could do the reverse from Azir to Urithiru. In other words, start small. If Azir refuse something as simple as that then nothing is going to work with them until something happens to them.

 

[BlackYeti]

11 minutes ago, Slothspren said:

 And similarly AFTER his death Taravangian went to Nightwatcher and asked for the capacity to save the world, and AGAIN he came to the same conclusion that the world must be destroyed first and they must unleash the voidbringers again. In case of Gavilar I could have assumed his supposedly misguided quest to unleash the desolation and voidbringers in order to force the Heralds to come forward, but what's Taravangian's end goal ?

What makes you think that Taravangian has been trying to return the Voidbringers? 

It seems to me like he has been assuming that the Voidbringers will return (presumably because the diagram says they will), and is trying to unite the world so that they don't destroy it. 

Funnily enough, that's exactly the same as Dalinar's plan, save for the methods they choose to employ in realising it.

[Slothspren]

33 minutes ago, BlackYeti said:

What makes you think that Taravangian has been trying to return the Voidbringers? 

I think i read it or maybe I just got the impression that he was willing to do that. When Dalinar tried to make peace with the parshendi he tried to assassinate him.. but I could be wrong about him willing to bring back Voidbringers.

[BlackYeti]

12 minutes ago, Slothspren said:

I think i read it or maybe I just got the impression that he was willing to do that. When Dalinar tried to make peace with the parshendi he tried to assassinate him.. but I could be wrong about him willing to bring back Voidbringers.

I assume you're referring to this section of the diagram:

Quote

Chaos in Alethkar is, of course, inevitable. Watch carefully, and do not let power in the kingdom solidify. The Blackthorn could become an ally or our greatest foe, depending on whether he takes the path of the warlord or not. If he seems likely to sue for peace, assassinate him expeditiously. The risk of competition is too great.

I assumed that this related to Dalinar's attempt to unite Alethkar and bring stability to the nation.

As we saw, Dalinar did go down this route, and it did not stop the Voidbringers from returning. However,  Taravangian is clearly going to have a much harder job gaining control of Alethkar now, than he would have if Dalinar had reverted to the man he was in his youth. 

[Nashan’Elin]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

But I think that'd be over-investing in that angle, versus the simpler plot-building rationale that we're about to see What's Going On In Azir with a Lift POV that results in absorbing Gawx's full and personal attention - since the last POV we had of her in Edgedancer had her heading that way.

I wish we'd get a Lift PoV, but we know who will be the PoV characters in this part, and Lift's not one of them. So the soonest we'll get a chance to catch up with everyone's favorite Edgedancer and her Shardfork, we'll probably be in the 1st Interlude or the 2nd part. 

[The Invested Beard]

1 hour ago, Slothspren said:

I saw several mentions of this as if its finally clarified  and then I re-read the whole part and did not see any mention of sprens being converted into plates. From what I read Stormfather gave them sentience and Kaladin asked Syl if she could try doing the same, i.e give sentience to other windspren and help him create more windrunner or elevate his squires into the order.

 

“So maybe you could do that,” Kaladin said. “Find little, uh, bits of the wind? Or of Honor? Shape them?” 

This is the spot we're talking about. Saying "shape them" is just one little step away from saying "shape them into shardplate".

Edited September 21, 2017 by The Invested Beard

[Elena]

1 hour ago, Slothspren said:

Not to mention I am really REALLY hating Dalinar being so possessive about Radiants and Kaladin being so subservient to him. They are both Radiants and by the KR law they are both equals from different orders. And the fate of that Honorblade should be decided by Kaladin not Dalinar, it is a Windrunner blade which belongs to the patron of their order. Ideally it should be locked away in Windrunner custody. 

I'm not hating it myself, because it feels like a natural and predictable evolution of their roles, but I understand what you mean. Kaladin willingly gave the Honorblade to Dalinar and there's nothing to do about that, but in regard to the rest consider:

*The two main attributes of Windrunners are protection and leadership. Kaladin is definitely coming into his own as a leader of men in this book, although pertaining to a completely different sphere than Dalinar's. He previously avoided stepping up as a leader, at least when he could get away with it, now he's rallying people to his cause. That said, he's never been subservient to Dalinar - subordinate yes, he's a soldier, but subservient and Kaladin are two words that just don't go together.

*If you dislike the way Dalinar's handling thing, keep in mind that (at least IMO) he won't be around much longer. Going into this book I thought he was a goner; now that Elhokar brought up the High King stuff I am slightly less sure, but still think that if not in this one he has high chances of dying by the end of the next book at the very latest. He just seems doomed to me.

[Agent34]

11 hours ago, Nymeros said:

Well Dalinar is dying on this book, so yeah.

What makes you say that with such certainty?

[Slothspren]

1 minute ago, The Invested Beard said:

This is the spot we're talking about. Saying "shape them" is just one little step away from saying "shape them into shardplate".

I took "shape them" for shaping them into proper Honorspren instead of dumb splinters of Honor flying around. not to mention shardplates can be grown from a single piece of the plate.. which kind of seems un-sprenly, because if someone is feeding stormlight to a part of the plate at one place and someone else is feeding another part somewhere else then only one of them will grow back into full plate as a hole. which seems very unlikely that a spren or multiple sprens were divided and their fate is decided based on stormlight feeding frenzy, and the losing side turning into nothing. Also we haven't seen any mention of disintegrated plate turning releasing sprens or anything like that, like we saw with that fallen chasmfiend. Also its possible to join multiple broken plates into a complete new one which again seems to un-sprenly. There has been a lot of research done on plates and so far no one has seen any relation to spren, they have tried to see if it works like a fabrial (which works because of spren) and the scholars have failed in finding anything.

tl;dr: What i deducted from that discussion was that Kaladin was asking her to emulate/recreate what stormfather does to give dumb sprens (subspren)  voices/sentience.    

[Nashan’Elin]

2 minutes ago, Slothspren said:

tl;dr: What i deducted from that discussion was that Kaladin was asking her to emulate/recreate what stormfather does to give dumb sprens (subspren)  voices/sentience.    

This is what I think, too. It seems more likely that with what we know of Shardplate, it's some form of Investiture made solid, and somehow modified to have special properties. 

From what Syl also says in that same part about leaving her babies in a highprince's shoe, it seems more like she was talking about newly formed honorspen and not a couple pieces of Shardplate. Though I guess the highprince would rather find some Shardplate in his shoe than a couple of not-windspren 

[Slothspren]

1 hour ago, Elena said:

*If you dislike the way Dalinar's handling thing, keep in mind that (at least IMO) he won't be around much longer. Going into this book I thought he was a goner; now that Elhokar brought up the High King stuff I am slightly less sure, but still think that if not in this one he has high chances of dying by the end of the next book at the very latest. He just seems doomed to me.

Hah.. I like him but he just annoys me sometimes. I thought so the same that Dalinar probably wont survive.. and now reading those chapter epigraphs sounds like its written as his biography after he is done. But I hope thats not the case as somehow it seems the purpose of bondsmiths is essential to KRs. And he is the only one around these days.
And I dont think this whole Highking business will last long. He is no dragon reborn and KRs are supposed to serve all of humanity equally, not to lord over them. 

Edited September 21, 2017 by Slothspren

[Ramza1890]

12 hours ago, BlackYeti said:

And yet, he's giving away his authority to Dalinar. The Windrunners' secondary Divine Attribute is leadership, is it not? Would this action not be in conflict with that?

That is why I believe he is a Willshaper. There are no known WIllshapers so we have no idea what their bonded spren look like. Sanderson needs an avenue to introduce this order and I think that Elhokar is the best option. He is going back home to try and reunite his kingdom, one of the Willshaper surges is cohesion. I love the idea of him beginning to use stormlight while adventuring with Kaladin only to have it revealed that he is the Radiant of an entirely different order. I explained at length why I think that Elhokar is a Willshaper in an earlier post on this thread.

Edited September 21, 2017 by Ramza1890

[Slothspren]

3 minutes ago, Nashan'Elin said:

Though I guess the highprince would rather find some Shardplate in his shoe than a couple of not-windspren 

Imagine a highprince finding bunch of crying mini-shardplates in his show and he is like "What is this? A shardplate for ants?" or cremlings in roshar i guess. 
 

( I dont know whats the policy about posting meme-images otherwise was gonna post some quick meme here)

[Musica]

27 minutes ago, Slothspren said:

I took "shape them" for shaping them into proper Honorspren instead of dumb splinters of Honor flying around. not to mention shardplates can be grown from a single piece of the plate.. which kind of seems un-sprenly, because if someone is feeding stormlight to a part of the plate at one place and someone else is feeding another part somewhere else then only one of them will grow back into full plate as a hole. which seems very unlikely that a spren or multiple sprens were divided and their fate is decided based on stormlight feeding frenzy, and the losing side turning into nothing. Also we haven't seen any mention of disintegrated plate turning releasing sprens or anything like that, like we saw with that fallen chasmfiend. Also its possible to join multiple broken plates into a complete new one which again seems to un-sprenly. There has been a lot of research done on plates and so far no one has seen any relation to spren, they have tried to see if it works like a fabrial (which works because of spren) and the scholars have failed in finding anything.

 

What you say makes sense, but maybe that's because those Plates, much like the Blades, are made of dead spren? The feeding of Stormlight to the broken pieces brings them to life a little, and helps them form back into a full Plate, while the smaller pieces "die" as there is nothing to hold them together anymore?

 

[Slothspren]

1 minute ago, Musica said:

What you say makes sense, but maybe that's because those Plates, much like the Blades, are made of dead spren? The feeding of Stormlight to the broken pieces brings them to life a little, and helps them form back into a full Plate, while the smaller pieces "die" as there is nothing to hold them together anymore?

 

Syl mentioned that there is nothing special about the plates. While she very emotional and tight-lipped about the blades so I dont think if they are made of spren in same way. 

[Slothspren]

On 9/19/2017 at 9:44 PM, Ryder said:

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.

I believe she has similar aspect/resonance to her abilities like Renarin has.

• Renarin sees the future
• Shallan sees the past or present, not sure which one but  once or twice  she drew a scene which was already happening or had happened somewhere else, I dont remember the details but it was either past or present event.
• Kaladin does his spirit flight thing in storms

 

[Nashan’Elin]

5 minutes ago, Slothspren said:

• Kaladin does his spirit flight thing in storms

 

I though the Windrunner Resonance was confirmed to be having a bunch of super-strong squires?

[Slothspren]

19 minutes ago, Nashan'Elin said:

I though the Windrunner Resonance was confirmed to be having a bunch of super-strong squires?

well frankly before coming to this forum I hadnt heard of resonance. (or at least dont remember it)

But I do remember those events which were unique to them and were never explained and now that I see it different characters are showing different aspects which are some kind of representation of their surges. And kaladin did that spirit thing for at least 3 times so it cant be just random coincidence. Also its brandon sanderson.. so there are no unexplained outta-thin-air kinda magics. Everything is explainable through in-world science. 

[redbishop]

19 minutes ago, Nashan'Elin said:

I though the Windrunner Resonance was confirmed to be having a bunch of super-strong squires?

It was.  Flying is an effect of the Surge of Gravitation.

13 hours ago, Nashan'Elin said:

Kaladin refers to Dalinar as his commanding officer basically all the time, and there's no problem there. There's nothing wrong with being a leader who's not the very top of the totem pole. 

Besides, Elhokar also made Dalinar agree that he (Elhokar) would be sovereign in Alethkar, and Dalinar would have to go through him. That's pretty leader-y.

Semantic point, but I don't think Elhokar can rightly be called a sovereign anymore.  He has a liege-lord now, so while he may be a monarch, he no longer is the final arbiter of the direction of his kingdom.  That's part of the definition of sovereignty.

Another point I haven't seen discussed, which I will bring up because I don't buy Adolin-reawakens-his-blade (Because Adolin being an Edgedancer seems like it will take an unusual amount of character growth in unexpected directions):  Renarin returned the blade that Adolin won for him, for Adolin to decide how to dispose of it.  A few thoughts:

1. Assuming it is of a more-suitable Order, will some trick of fate result in him reawakening it?  There are several Orders (Dustbringers, Willshapers, Stonewards... even Windrunners) I could find that as plausible.
2. We have a precedent for what a sharpbearer-cum-KR does with a former shardblade - relinquish it to the ardents, for redistribution to someone they trust to decide.  This may eventually become the Stormfather, though that's a pet theory.
3. Combining 1 and 2, Adolin will become a KR and relinquish his balde, asking Dalinar to decide what to do with his blade.  He'll ask the Stormfather, and I expect Very Interesting Things may result.

Did we ever get a description of Renarin's blade?  I believe we saw Elhokar's and Amaram's described, and at least one of them sounded Dustbringer-y.