[OB] Oathbringer chapters 22-24

[DeployParachute]

7 hours ago, maxal said:

Here are my thoughts so far on the three new chapters. This week, they will start with a rant...

I hate reading the story within this serialized manner  It gives me the impression it is slow paced as each week I hope the denouement I have been dying to read will happen and, each week, it doesn't. This is getting infuriating  If I had the books into my hands, I'd be done reading it  I feel the reading format we are constrained to forces me to be unfair towards the story and I hate it 
 

You're not alone.  Something has seemed...off to me about the writing in Oathbringer so far.  I can't really put my finger on what it is.  I don't know if it is the serialized format or something else.  Sometimes the actions of many of our actors seems to not fit the characterizations that have been developed for them in the books so far.  Kaladin sometimes doesn't feel like Kaladin to me.  Shallan too.  It feels like the subtlety in their writing has disappeared and has been replaced by exaggerations of the most identifiable personality traits.  Actually, Adolin seems to be the most consistent to me with regards to the previous books, and that's probably because we just haven't spent as much time in his POV. 

I'm hoping that this is a pacing issue that is a combination of the serialized format, and the need to get a lot of "beat points" out during this first book.  I also might just be falling victim to my own high expectations from anticipating this book for so long.  

 

Anyway, my own bit of theory crafting for this set of chapters involves Kaladin and his inevitable arrival at the location where the Listeners are being gathered.  So far, Kaladin, and us as readers, are currently lulled into the security of "knowing" that at any time, he's going to be able to fly out of this mess when things really start to hit the fan.  I don't think this meetup is going to go well for Kaladin, and I think Book 1 is going to end with a major cliff hanger for him with the discovery that he indeed has been lead into a trap, and the voidspren has several contingency plans for dealing with his Nahel bond.  I think Kaladin is the secondary main character that is entirely missing from the Book 2 outline, and that when we finally return to him after a period of time, we're going to see what his reintroduction to captivity has done. 

[dvoraen]

So after reading all this, I just have one question to whomever:

Anyone want to wager on Kaladin finding out firsthand where Nergaoul is?   I think it's pretty obvious the listeners are being guided toward one of the Unmade so as to be properly shackled and transformed by their "gods", and the most likely candidate for the Alethkar region would be Nergaoul (because of the Thrill's strength).

 

For the next topic, I'm going to go with pridespren for the 'species' of Voidspren that speaks to Kaladin.  The reason has to do with her overall mannerisms in how she treats Kaladin.  It would also explain how she found these listeners, because it's very clear that they think themselves as better than slaves for sure.

Edited October 18, 2017 by dvoraen

[Morsk he/him]

Okay, chapter 22 is "The Darkness Within" and I could have sworn "Darkness within!" was a curse phrase somewhere in the cosmere.

I can't find it in Kindle searches on Stormlight 1 & 2, or Arcanum Unbounded, so maybe I have it confused with something else. It sounds so familiar though.

[Agent34]

2 hours ago, Morsk said:

Okay, chapter 22 is "The Darkness Within" and I could have sworn "Darkness within!" was a curse phrase somewhere in the cosmere.

I can't find it in Kindle searches on Stormlight 1 & 2, or Arcanum Unbounded, so maybe I have it confused with something else. It sounds so familiar though.

I think there's a mention of people believing that voidbringers were the darkness that dwelled inside men just as the Almighty was the light in all men. Could that be it?

[Zalocx he/him]

2 hours ago, Morsk said:

Okay, chapter 22 is "The Darkness Within" and I could have sworn "Darkness within!" was a curse phrase somewhere in the cosmere.

I can't find it in Kindle searches on Stormlight 1 & 2, or Arcanum Unbounded, so maybe I have it confused with something else. It sounds so familiar though.

There is this from chapter 32 of WoR

Quote

Syl spun about, twisting this way, then that. Her small eyes opened wide. “He’s coming."

“Who? The storm?”

“The one who hates,” she whispered. “The darkness inside. Kaladin, he’s watching. Something’s going to happen. Something bad.”

 

[Stark he/him]

17 hours ago, Mulk said:

Nale has no spren, nor any longer a connection to Honor as far as we know.  The point is well-taken otherwise (I agree with the post almost entirely), but that is worth pointing out.  If he had a spren, it would possibly have tried to deflect him from this course.

Fair point.  I would have name dropped one of his Skybreakers, who he was training to hunt down and murder proto-Radiants for whatever contrived legality they could come up with if we had one to name drop, but I figured Nale as the patron of the Skybreakers would communicate the point.  But as far as I know, no current Skybreakers have names.  Unless you want to count Szeth, who does not seem to have a nahel-bonded spren yet, who has tried to kill both Kaladin and Dalinar, though that was under orders.

 

But very true, Nale is not technically a Skybreaker any more than Szeth was a Windrunner.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

13 hours ago, Nymeros said:

No. However some.....theorists* do believe that a comment Nale made to Gawx was actually concerning Jezrien 

There is not only that comment, but also the drunk Szeth spoke to in the WoK, who is commonly believed to be Jezrien. 

[DSC01 he/him]

8 hours ago, DeployParachute said:

You're not alone.  Something has seemed...off to me about the writing in Oathbringer so far.  I can't really put my finger on what it is.  I don't know if it is the serialized format or something else.  Sometimes the actions of many of our actors seems to not fit the characterizations that have been developed for them in the books so far.  Kaladin sometimes doesn't feel like Kaladin to me.  Shallan too.  It feels like the subtlety in their writing has disappeared and has been replaced by exaggerations of the most identifiable personality traits.  Actually, Adolin seems to be the most consistent to me with regards to the previous books, and that's probably because we just haven't spent as much time in his POV. 

I'm hoping that this is a pacing issue that is a combination of the serialized format, and the need to get a lot of "beat points" out during this first book.  I also might just be falling victim to my own high expectations from anticipating this book for so long.  

 

Anyway, my own bit of theory crafting for this set of chapters involves Kaladin and his inevitable arrival at the location where the Listeners are being gathered.  So far, Kaladin, and us as readers, are currently lulled into the security of "knowing" that at any time, he's going to be able to fly out of this mess when things really start to hit the fan.  I don't think this meetup is going to go well for Kaladin, and I think Book 1 is going to end with a major cliff hanger for him with the discovery that he indeed has been lead into a trap, and the voidspren has several contingency plans for dealing with his Nahel bond.  I think Kaladin is the secondary main character that is entirely missing from the Book 2 outline, and that when we finally return to him after a period of time, we're going to see what his reintroduction to captivity has done. 

It is the serialization. They didn't do this much of a serialization for WoR, but they did release some of it, and I remember feeling the same way, like the writing just wasn't as good and things felt off. When I got the full book, that feeling went away. It's not the format, either. I read an ebook on my phone while I was waiting for my hardcover of WoR to ship, and I also read the serialization on my phone, so it was more or less the same format.

[Mulk he/him]

Judging characterization on one chapter at a time is honestly not a great practice.  Unless you're dealing with a book without chapters there is no way to accurately judge a character in such a short snippet - you're never going to see a character's full range in one chapter, let alone a series of single chapters that hop viewpoints in this way.

Given how the first two books in the series worked out and how well Brandon writes in general, I'm willing to say it'll be fine when put into its full context.  Right now we're trying to judge the quality of a piece of art by looking at one corner of the frame.

[Aleksiel]

I dislike the Aviar theory, because Brandon said SA will be self-sufficient and he'll keep the Cosmere at easter egg level. If a worldhopper is openly walking around with a creature from another planet, that's like Brandon has given up on even trying to do what he planned. There already are a bunch of Cosmere thing - several mentions of Adonalsium, cosmere letters (seriously, who provides postal service on interplanetary level, I wanna know), Hoid and a considerable amount of other worldhoppers. An aviar to me would indicate the series is slowly going from large epic story of Roshar focused on interesting characters to a full cosmere novella with a different focus, which wasn't supposed to happen. 

[SpeakoftheDeval]

On 10/17/2017 at 2:31 PM, Stark said:

I'm proud of Adolin for not being violent, but also for cutting through the double speak

Just like last week Adolin's attitude to Shallan's guards made me think of Lift's oath of remembrance, this week Adolin's 'cutting through the double speak' made me think of Lift's gift of tongues and just give me edgedancer adolin please

[StormingTexan he/him]

8 minutes ago, Aleksiel said:

I dislike the Aviar theory, because Brandon said SA will be self-sufficient and he'll keep the Cosmere at easter egg level. If a worldhopper is openly walking around with a creature from another planet, that's like Brandon has given up on even trying to do what he planned. There already are a bunch of Cosmere thing - several mentions of Adonalsium, cosmere letters (seriously, who provides postal service on interplanetary level, I wanna know), Hoid and a considerable amount of other worldhoppers. An aviar to me would indicate the series is slowly going from large epic story of Roshar focused on interesting characters to a full cosmere novella with a different focus, which wasn't supposed to happen. 

I have a feeling this was just an Easter egg like the rest of his collection and we will probably not see it used. To anyone not familiar with the cosmere it’s just going to be a bird  on a guy’s shoulder doesn’t really mean anything besides he may be a pirate. It doesn’t take away from the overall story if you do not get its meaning Cosmere wide just like the items Shallan describes in his collection. 

 

I will say the exception to this rule is Nightblood. I’m assuming we will read a lot more about him and without explaining it’s origen in SA would be confusing to a reader not familiar with the other Cosmer works. I’m sure Brandon had a plan for this though.

[dendrophobe he/him]

25 minutes ago, StormingTexan said:

I have a feeling this was just an Easter egg like the rest of his collection and we will probably not see it used. To anyone not familiar with the cosmere it’s just going to be a bird  on a guy’s shoulder doesn’t really mean anything besides he may be a pirate. It doesn’t take away from the overall story if you do not get its meaning Cosmere wide just like the items Shallan describes in his collection. 

 

I will say the exception to this rule is Nightblood. I’m assuming we will read a lot more about him and without explaining it’s origen in SA would be confusing to a reader not familiar with the other Cosmer works. I’m sure Brandon had a plan for this though.

Agreed, this was my thought as well. Mraize is using the Aviar for something, and its abilities may even be hinted at. But it'll never go out and say what it is, or have it be a huge plot point. Just something that Cosmere fans will recognize and appreciate. If the word "aviar" is ever mentioned in tSA I'll be shocked. But I fully expect that we'll get a WoB at some point confirming that yes, that's an Aviar on his shoulder. Similar to how we saw Hoid downing some metal flakes in Shallan's flashback, it won't really be explained at all in the books. And won't need to be; people who read tSA only will have a self-sufficient story, albeit with a few unexplained mysteries. But if you've read the rest of his Cosmere stuff, you'll be able to say "Aha! That's what that was!" and see the larger connection. 

edit: and yeah... I have no idea how in the heck he's going to explain Nightblood in such a way that it's satisfying to non-Cosmere readers. Even for people in-world. "Oh yeah, this is an alien talking sword. It wants to destroy evil." There's really nothing in the magic system of Stormlight that can hope to explain that kind of thing.

Edited October 18, 2017 by dendrophobe

[SpeakoftheDeval]

Also if Mraize does have an aviar then... surely thats a new type of bond that would not only give the powers that the same bird on first of the sun but also the extra powers that all bonds give on Roshar which could be literally anything?

[Mulk he/him]

For a reader who is unaware of the cosmere (as I was when I first read of the talking sword - I read Warbreaker like three months ago), you just take it as a strange spren/sword you haven't run across yet.  Like a spren who died and was resurrected or somehow survived the whole stuck in bladeform thing.  I know, cause I was there. *shrugs*

I mean seriously.  There are sentient spren and apparently quite a lot of them.  It's not much of a stretch to think something odd happened to one.

[StormingTexan he/him]

16 minutes ago, dendrophobe said:

Agreed, this was my thought as well. Mraize is using the Aviar for something, and its abilities may even be hinted at. But it'll never go out and say what it is, or have it be a huge plot point. Just something that Cosmere fans will recognize and appreciate. If the word "aviar" is ever mentioned in tSA I'll be shocked. But I fully expect that we'll get a WoB at some point confirming that yes, that's an Aviar on his shoulder. Similar to how we saw Hoid downing some metal flakes in Shallan's flashback, it won't really be explained at all in the books. And won't need to be; people who read tSA only will have a self-sufficient story, albeit with a few unexplained mysteries. But if you've read the rest of his Cosmere stuff, you'll be able to say "Aha! That's what that was!" and see the larger connection. 

 

Pretty much exactly how I think it will go down.

 

 

[dendrophobe he/him]

6 minutes ago, Mulk said:

For a reader who is unaware of the cosmere (as I was when I first read of the talking sword - I read Warbreaker like three months ago), you just take it as a strange spren/sword you haven't run across yet.  Like a spren who died and was resurrected or somehow survived the whole stuck in bladeform thing.  I know, cause I was there. *shrugs*

I mean seriously.  There are sentient spren and apparently quite a lot of them.  It's not much of a stretch to think something odd happened to one.

Interesting. You're the first person whose reactions of that sort I've read. Glad to know it wasn't too confusing. 

However, that was just a line or a few lines (depending on if you read Edgedancer as well). I'd imagine that it would be harder to assume Nightblood is just an odd spren in future books where he shows up more. Cause... Nightblood can do other stuff besides just talk like a spren stuck in sword form. Like eat souls and stuff. Then again, I could be wrong.

Edited October 18, 2017 by dendrophobe

[WhiteLeeopard she/her]

1 hour ago, StormingTexan said:

I will say the exception to this rule is Nightblood. I’m assuming we will read a lot more about him and without explaining it’s origen in SA would be confusing to a reader not familiar with the other Cosmer works. I’m sure Brandon had a plan for this though.

I believe this point is part of why Warbreaker can be downloaded for free in his website. 

[Nymeros]

As someone who has not read Sixth of Dusk, I had no idea about Aviar specifically and assumed that Ialai was just being extravagant and different by having creatures so exotic as birds flying around her area.....it's why I haven't joined in that conversation at all.

Color me surprised to come and find pages of conversation about the bird being not a parrot but instead a magical alien super power granting bird (I really spoiled myself hard on that one).

 

Nightblood is an exception though and he is not an "Easter Egg."

He was created by Sanderson as a failed alien shardblade and was always supposed to be a part of Stormlight. He will be explained in greater detail when it becomes necessary.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Nymeros

[The Invested Beard]

1 hour ago, Aleksiel said:

I dislike the Aviar theory, because Brandon said SA will be self-sufficient and he'll keep the Cosmere at easter egg level. If a worldhopper is openly walking around with a creature from another planet, that's like Brandon has given up on even trying to do what he planned. There already are a bunch of Cosmere thing - several mentions of Adonalsium, cosmere letters (seriously, who provides postal service on interplanetary level, I wanna know), Hoid and a considerable amount of other worldhoppers. An aviar to me would indicate the series is slowly going from large epic story of Roshar focused on interesting characters to a full cosmere novella with a different focus, which wasn't supposed to happen. 

Yes, on the one hand SLA is supposed to be fairly stand-alone in terms of Cosmere stuff intruding. However as more is learned about the story behind what's going on I feel like there are going to be a lot of Cosmere connections based soley on the history of the planet and it's shards alone and how things came to be the way they are. I almost think that this series, being the biggest and most epic of all of them, is going to end up being a Cosmere linchpin and it will be more like the Cosmere is being fleshed out by what is going on here and not vice-versa. Does that make sense?

[Mulk he/him]

Just now, dendrophobe said:

Interesting. You're the first person whose reactions of that sort I've read. Glad to know it wasn't too confusing. 

However, that was just a line or a few lines (depending on if you read Edgedancer as well). I'd imagine that it would be harder to assume Nightblood is just an odd spren in future books where he shows up more. I could be wrong.

I've read Edgedancer.  "The sword likes you" is a line that belongs on Roshar just like the fact Syl likes and trusts Dalinar - in my mind they were both spren.  Kaladin says the shardblades are dead spren, Syl says they live a little again, and that's all I took it to be.  Now, having read Warbreaker it was immediately clear (to me anyway) that Nightblood was the same sword that Szeth winds up with.  But I don't think you need that information to enjoy the book or to not think something is off.  Same thing with Vasher/Zahel.  There's a lot of cultures we haven't seen yet on Roshar, I assumed he was from one of them.

You see, for the innocent reader nothing about Nightblood is out of place in a world where the very forces of nature can become sentient.  Where semi-intelligent or unintelligent cognitive realm bits show up for rot and anger and wind and the...I forget the name for the ones that showed up when inebriated.  The whole realm is just bursting at the seams with life and power.  A sword is just one more bit of that, without the pieces I know now.  And with the pieces I know how, I don't see how someone who isn't aware of those bits is supposed to conclude this doesn't fit.  It'd be more of a stretch to say something like that can't happen than that it could in such a world.  In effect you're putting a box on the creator of the work saying you can't do that, when the creator says yeah I can, watch this.The rules are all going to make sense in the end to the Cosmere-aware, and be unnecessary frippery to those who are not.  And if Brandon decides he wants to do more with it and show off the greater universe through Nightblood? Cool. But I think he'll do it in a way that won't require you to know Warbreaker to understand.

I'm just in a roll with it phase, you know?  I like bouncing around theories too (for example, here's a harebrained one I haven't posted yet - Iyatil and Mraize and the Ghostbloods are linked up with the IRE in some fashion to work on acquiring the power of Honor or Cultivation or Odium to further their own ends which is why they say they will make use of the Desolation or the coming conflict or whatever) but in the end I tend to assume most new stuff is just Rosharan stuff we haven't seen on screen yet and that's exactly what I expect of any non-cosmere aware readers.

[Aleksiel]

18 minutes ago, The Invested Beard said:

Yes, on the one hand SLA is supposed to be fairly stand-alone in terms of Cosmere stuff intruding. However as more is learned about the story behind what's going on I feel like there are going to be a lot of Cosmere connections based soley on the history of the planet and it's shards alone and how things came to be the way they are. I almost think that this series, being the biggest and most epic of all of them, is going to end up being a Cosmere linchpin and it will be more like the Cosmere is being fleshed out by what is going on here and not vice-versa. Does that make sense?

Yes, it makes sense. Odium seems to be the most destructive force present in the cosmere so far, so I can see how what happens on Roshar (if he's splintered or merged with another Shard eventually) will effect a lot on a much larger scale. I could even ship Mraize and Shallan in a new cosmere-focused series  My fear is mainly around SA digressing and shifting focus from great characters I want to read more about to cosmere, realmatic theory and similar. I like your suggestion, that would be much better.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

1 hour ago, Nymeros said:

As someone who has not read Sixth of Dusk, I had no idea about Aviar specifically and assumed that Ialai was just being extravagant and different by having creatures so exotic as birds flying around her area.....it's why I haven't joined in that conversation at all.

Color me surprised to come and find pages of conversation about the bird being not a parrot but instead a magical alien super power granting bird (I really spoiled myself hard on that one).

 

Nightblood is an exception though and he is not an "Easter Egg."

He was created by Sanderson as a failed alien shardblade and was always supposed to be a part of Stormlight. He will be explained in greater detail when it becomes necessary.

Apologies for being a part of those that spoiled it. It really should have been mentioned under spoiler tags, so you're not at fault! (We should all know better, for shame!) So apologies again! (All the more incentive to read Sixth of the Dusk!)

[kari-no-sugata]

3 hours ago, DSC01 said:

It is the serialization. They didn't do this much of a serialization for WoR, but they did release some of it, and I remember feeling the same way, like the writing just wasn't as good and things felt off. When I got the full book, that feeling went away. It's not the format, either. I read an ebook on my phone while I was waiting for my hardcover of WoR to ship, and I also read the serialization on my phone, so it was more or less the same format.

I agree that the serialisation makes a big difference. I'm trying to think back to WoR without intensively re-reading it but I don't think there's much of a change. When we'll have read the whole book I'm sure the experience will be rather different.

The serialisation sure does highlight some things. For example, there's very little "passive" information in the chapters - nearly everything is immediately relevant. This does mean that there's an awful lot of detail that we can only guess at. When we're reading a few chapters a week that "missing" information stands out a lot more, I think, because we have much more time to ponder and argue about it. There's also very little overlap between the different POV characters - we see very little of Shallan and Adolin from Dalinar's POV, and vice-versa. Somewhat like in WoR, Adolin is about the only POV character we get to see quite a lot of from other POV characters. In WoR, there were some early chapters with significant amounts of Dalinar and Kaladin and later on significant amount of Kaladin and Shallan, but I think that'd be less than 10% of the book. I'd be rather surprised if there's nothing similar for OB - we'll just have to wait for it.

[StormingTexan he/him]

1 hour ago, kari-no-sugata said:

When we're reading a few chapters a week that "missing" information stands out a lot more, I think, because we have much more time to ponder and argue about it.

That is exactly it. When we read the entire book we do not dissect each chapter and have a week to discuss in minutia every detail and possible ramifications. We could have read the book multiple times now in the span we have been receiving the sample chapters. It is probably too late for those of us that have started reading these (it's like a drug lol) but if this really bothers anyone they should probably avoid them on future books. 

I actually think a group discussion on just a few chapters at a time is fun and it really makes me think of things differently. Plus it is kinda fun just seeing how wrong we are about things and increases my respect for Brandon in his ability to keep us guessing.