RoW Chapter 15 Discussion

[Algafix]

The "fossil" from Zahel recalled me of this epigraph from the second letter targeting Hoid. And Zahel shows the fossil just when they were talking about Hoid. I know that is improbable but, ey, it's an old rock

Quote

Have you given up on the gemstone, now that it is dead? And do you no longer hide behind the name of your old master? I am told that in your current incarnation you’ve taken a name that references what you presume to be one of your virtues.

 

 

[agrabes]

I thought this chapter's cosmere bleedthrough was handled much better than Ch. 13 - Kaladin's response is pretty much "Uh... what are you talking about here Zahel?" when Zahel started dropping references to stuff Kaladin has no knowledge or context for.  It's good for the characters to acknowledge that the information being dropped is out of place.  Especially stuff like "Type 2 Entities" or whatever.  Zahel explains a few things that are relevant to Kaladin and the overall story of Roshar, while keeping the rest a thinly veiled secret like his Awakening abilities.  It seems like from this that at least the Zahel/Azure/Nightblood storyline will remain primarily about the here and now and what is going on in Roshar.

I also liked the Kaladin/Rlain interaction.  This really should be the model for conversations like it in the real world.  Kaladin has his ideas and tries to do what he thinks is right.  Rlain says "Hey, I appreciate the thought, but you know what you are doing is not actually a benefit for me."  And then Kaladin thinks about it and will consider how to do things a little differently the next time.  There's no dug in dogmatic rhetoric being thrown out by either side.  Just two friends honestly expressing their opinions and trying to do what is right, even if they start off with different ideas of what that is.  

I think I must just be a grumpy person haha.  Reading the community's super hyped thoughts about cosmere crossovers annoys me, but reading the chapter itself was good.  I'm glad people get what they want who love this stuff, but I'll leave it to you all to speculate.

[+Bliev she/her]

2 minutes ago, robardin said:

Something haunting in the way that Zahel includes himself as well as the Fused in observing: "The longer one of us exists, the more like a spren we become. Consumed by a singular purpose, our minds bound and chained by our Intent. We’re spren masquerading as men."

Has he figured out what his Intent would be, then? In his time, he's surely seen many Returned who choose to give up their Divine Breath, even as he's also seen Returned just go on and on and on (and been one of those, too), as well as those who just die (possibly of Breath Starvation) or get killed (him being directly involved in a number of cases). Has he puzzled out what motivated those who gave up their Divine Breath? Does he consider that as "fulfilling their Command" such that he must surely wonder what his own would be?

I was thinking about that. About what his Intent is, or what he thinks it is. Does he think he hasn't found it yet? Does he think it passed him by and he was a coward by not doing it? Maybe his seeming lack of knowledge about Endowment in WB is mitigated during the between time...maybe it all comes back to him in the moment but instead of giving up his breath, he chooses not to?

[Schneeente]

1 hour ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Rlain chiding Kaladin for trying to be a white human savior felt awkward and forced.

How so? When I read the chapter in which Kaladin ordered the spren to try to bond with Rlain, I had hoped for exactly this reaction. I mean, look how intimate the relationship between Syl/Kaladin is. Ordering one party into such a relationship feels completely wrong and Rlain was right to reject "the offer". 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Schneeente

[+Child of Hodor]

7 minutes ago, Bliev said:

I was thinking about that. About what his Intent is, or what he thinks it is. Does he think he hasn't found it yet? Does he think it passed him by and he was a coward by not doing it? Maybe his seeming lack of knowledge about Endowment in WB is mitigated during the between time...maybe it all comes back to him in the moment but instead of giving up his breath, he chooses not to?

The way he was discussing it, I thought he meant what the Endowment investiture was influencing him to do generally and not what specific thing he was to sacrifice his second life for a la Lightsong. 

He's a teacher giving back to society. As an Ardent he's someone who owns no possessions anymore, he gave them up. He gave up Nightblood. 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Child of Hodor

[Michael Portz he/him]

1 hour ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Rlain chiding Kaladin for trying to be a white human savior felt awkward and forced.

It seemed utterly in character to me 

Being too proud to accept help with something you think you earned anyway does really not ring this bell for me.

*HUGS*

[IcaroRibeiro he/him]

3 hours ago, Innovation said:

So, Awakening has more than 4 types? Or maybe the types have simply been changed? Type 1 is a Returned, but Zahel seems to believe that type 1 are Spren instead. Type 2 is lifeless, and Zahel has branded that as all beings that are “back from the dead.” looks like lifeless are in the same category as Retuned now.

logicspren seem to work as warning or informing lights lights, based on certain stimuli. Huh. 

I guess  it was only a expansion of what being Type 1, 2 or whatever, means. Both Returned and Spren are Type 1, meanwhile Heralds, Lifeless and The Fused are all Type 2

Edited October 13, 2020 by IcaroRibeiro

[Rainier]

My thoughts on Vasher's Intent comment are that he is elucidating a truism of the Cosmere that power has a mind of its own. The Heralds have an Intent, the Shards have their intent, the spren and the shardblades and the Seons and whatever-the-hell-is-happening on Threnody all have Intents. Each piece of power has its own Intent that it tries to live out, and somehow has an Intent that, like a misaligned wheel, will draw the wielder of that power off target in the same direction.

Of all the Shardworlds, Nalthis is the one with the best knowledge of Intent, as that's crucial to Awakening in the first place. 

Quote

The longer one of us exists, the more like a spren we become. Consumed by a singular purpose, our minds bound and chained by our Intent. We’re spren masquerading as men.

I wonder if he knows how close he is to describing the Shattering, and the conflicts that have been going on since then. He knows Endowment, he knows Cultivation, he has to know Honor and Odium, right? And once he knows all of them, by name, he can't help but draw the Connection (heh) between what happens to a piece of cloth that gets invested and what happens to a person that gets invested. Dominated by the Intent of the power. The replica of an impression, made of power.

[SomeRandomPeasant she/her]

1 hour ago, Rainier said:

I'm curious why you think the idea of inclusion and racial equality would be present in a mostly-genocidal multi-millennia long recurring conflict. The spren themselves are the ones picking sides, after all, and why should they care one whit.

Of course the idea of racial inequality is not really present in the series now, but I think it is obvious that the series is heading in a direction where the prejudices of both human and listener society are being broken down.  You might think such a concept is unrealistic, but many characters in the series are at least trying to question old prejudices.  This series is running the risk of oversimplifying these problems, but they are being challenged.

1 hour ago, Rainier said:

Imperative to what, exactly?

I am utterly confused with this point.  It is clearly important that both races at least attempt to work together instead of outright annihilating each other.  Both humans and singers believe that this war will lead to the extinction of the loser.  In order to put an end to this genocide, it is not out of the question for both sides to reach some kind of shaky peace at the end of the series.  Peace might not be possible, and it would be naive to think that peace will solve everything, but it is better than outright destroying one another.

1 hour ago, Rainier said:

I'm mostly in agreement with this idea, but not through some kind of Whig history where everyone only ever gets better and progress is never undone. That's the vibe I'm getting from your post, that somehow everything must get better and it must get better in these specific ways that mirror reality.

As I said, coming together is not progress for the sake of progress.  It is an important first step in creating a peaceful end to this conflict.  This series is about two sides learning to coexist with each other rather than learning to destroy each other.

[Michael Portz he/him]

1 hour ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Exactly, because it's precisely what someone specifically living in our culture at this particular place and moment of history would say.  Roshar is physically an incredibly alien environment with a feudal based society yet people have extremely modern takes on social issues.

You might be overthinking this; I’m from half around the world and might be twice as old as you (58) and do not see this 

[Rai she/her]

Yeah, people in the books don't have modern takes. What they say are literally legitimate criticisms of the systems they currently live in that it only takes a socially-conscious person to make? Nothing that Rlain said is a stretch, or a jump that only someone who lived in our modern times would make. Frankly, I'm glad we're seeing more discussion like this, because people like Rlain should have a bone to pick with the way they're treated and not just quietly accept it. Not gonna lie, the assumption that people who are outspoken about societal issues are acting too "modern" genuinely irritates me... People have been making criticisms about society since time. It's not a new thing on Earth either, even if it is particularly in the limelight right now. 

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

I have to say I'm not very impressed with this chapter. I was looking forward to this, Zahel/Vasher is one of my favorite characters and Kaladin is also one of my favorite characters, but this chapter totally fell flat for me.

First major complaint, using the largest known gems (the gemhearts from Chasmfiends) as grow lamps to produce small rockbuds that have a small amount of grain is just silly. The whole setup with the Ardent beating a drum and singing to a Rythym, like he's at a hippy drum circle, in order to just barely grow crops is a ludricous setup. And the fact that the largest gems they have barely provide enough investiture and crack in the process makes this process even sillier. They can't scale this methodology up (thry're already using the largest gems) and they are inefficiently and destructively consuming  a scarce resource that would be better used to soulcast grain directly.

I understand that this is really most likely here to show the mechanism the Sibling will be using to make crops grow at Urithiru, but the whole setup with giant bolted down Stormlight grow lamps, drumming and chanting Ardents, and the anemic rock buds is just too ridiculous for me 

And the new line that Brandon is taking about Cosmere bleed through didn't work at all with the fight between Vasher and Kaladin. If I had no knowledge of Awakening going into that scene, the fight wouldn't have made any sense. And the restrained way Awakening was described and even how it was utilized by Vasher was unsatisfying in the extreme. It's a cool magic system with a very fun visual manifestation, but this hesitancy to use it and the awkward way it was described really didn't work for me.

I was hoping for more.

Really, RoW is shaping up to be my least favorite SLA book so far. Navani's airship was disappointing, the minutiae of the pseudoscientific workings of fabrials is tedious and not compelling to me at all (logicspren are used to dim or increase light, really?, there's an overlap in allomantic type effects with fabrials too, how droll.)

I honestly have not been looking forward to the preview chapters with the same level of anticipation that I had on the eve of Oathbringer's release, with the exception of the scenes with Mraize, not much has been working for me with these chapters. 

[the_archduke he/him]

2 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

First major complaint, using the largest known gems (the gemhearts from Chasmfiends) as grow lamps to produce small rockbuds that have a small amount of grain is just silly. The whole setup with the Ardent beating a drum and singing to a Rythym, like he's at a hippy drum circle, in order to just barely grow crops is a ludricous setup. And the fact that the largest gems they have barely provide enough investiture and crack in the process makes this process even sillier. They can't scale this methodology up (thry're already using the largest gems) and they are inefficiently and destructively consuming  a scarce resource that would be better used to soulcast grain directly.

 

We have no idea how many rockbuds can be grown from the light of a single emerald.  We have no idea how efficient this process would be in a place other than Urithiru.  The Singers apparently thought it worthwhile to use on the Shattered Plains.  This is also a way to use stormlight without a soulcaster.  Soulcasters are rare and destructive to their users.  Developing tech that doesn't need them would be immensely valuable as they are unlikely to be mass producing soulcasters.  Imagine how much the Vedens or Makabaki kingdoms could use this since they likely don't have grain soulcasters. 

If it is inefficient, which we don't know, developing the tech is still a fantastically valuable endeavor.

[Gilphon]

Hmm. So. The fabrials that Navani's been talking about in the epigraphs have three main components: gem, spren and metal. But here we see that the Listeners knew of a different type of Fabrial, made from gem, spren and rhythm. This is probably exactly the kind of fabrial that Singers just naturally are, and indeed probably why the Rosharan fauna doesn't need metals; they can just use their heartbeats, or perhaps attune to various rhythms like the Singers do. Really this has to be the 'natural' form of the fabrial magic system, with the metal-based version being more a hack; combining the system with Allomancy.

But, we also have the epigraph talking about Logicspren pulsing in a specific pattern when poked the right way. Pulsing in one of the Rhythms, surely. And metals let you modify this pulse, perhaps moving it to a different Rhythm. So perhaps this could be used to combine the two types of fabrials, which could lead to a lot of new things.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Gilphon

[Karger he/him]

19 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

First major complaint, using the largest known gems (the gemhearts from Chasmfiends) as grow lamps to produce small rockbuds that have a small amount of grain is just silly. The whole setup with the Ardent beating a drum and singing to a Rythym, like he's at a hippy drum circle, in order to just barely grow crops is a ludricous setup. And the fact that the largest gems they have barely provide enough investiture and crack in the process makes this process even sillier. They can't scale this methodology up (thry're already using the largest gems) and they are inefficiently and destructively consuming  a scarce resource that would be better used to soulcast grain directly.

We don't know you can't scale it up.  They are still in the experimental phase.

[Schneeente]

29 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

First major complaint, using the largest known gems (the gemhearts from Chasmfiends) as grow lamps to produce small rockbuds that have a small amount of grain is just silly. The whole setup with the Ardent beating a drum and singing to a Rythym, like he's at a hippy drum circle, in order to just barely grow crops is a ludricous setup. And the fact that the largest gems they have barely provide enough investiture and crack in the process makes this process even sillier. They can't scale this methodology up (thry're already using the largest gems) and they are inefficiently and destructively consuming  a scarce resource that would be better used to soulcast grain directly.

I hate to be "the fanboy" that comes to the rescue, but I feel like this criticism isn't justified. It says that sometimes the gems break. It also says that sometimes gems break from soulcasting. "Sometimes" is such a wishy-washy description and we don't have any statistics regarding it. But it does make sense that they sometimes break, otherwise the listener-system would be far superior to soulcasting. 

And since we don't know how many kg grain can be soulcasted on average before a gem gets destroyed and we don't know how many kg grain can be grown before on average the gem gets destroyed: Common sense tells us that they can generate more grain with the slow method before you lose the gem. Otherwise - why would they use this method if it were inferior in any aspect to soulcasting? 

 

29 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

And the new line that Brandon is taking about Cosmere bleed through didn't work at all with the fight between Vasher and Kaladin. If I had no knowledge of Awakening going into that scene, the fight wouldn't have made any sense. And the restrained way Awakening was described and even how it was utilized by Vasher was unsatisfying in the extreme. It's a cool magic system with a very fun visual manifestation, but this hesitancy to use it and the awkward way it was described really didn't work for me.

As someone who has read Warbreaker only once I had forgotten all about this awakening inanimate objects at first and just started to remember it when it was decribed. I don't think that "the fight doesn't make any sense" for people who haven't read Warbreaker. Even without zero knowledge you get the feeling that Zahel "can do something fishy". And you suspect that somehow magic is involved, but compared to Warbreaker-readers you don't understand the concrete mechanics. But you don't need to understand those to enjoy the fight. You know that Zahel can do something Kaladin cannot, and later he even reaveals that he is some kind of Herald-like figure so you are not even surprised that he has special abilities. 

I think it was done well. As a cosmere-aware person you could smirk at Kaladin's trouble, fighting an old man who uses nothing but a bunch of towels and cloth to defend himself, as a regular reader you were still smiling and heavily suspect that he was somehow using abilities Kaladin knows nothing about. 

 

 

---

 

I think the main problem was how heavily this chapter was hyped up beforehand, and then those gigantic expectations clashed with reality, it was a chapter like all the others. On a high level but not world-changing-jaw-dropping awesome.  

 

 

/edit: My biggest criticism of the chapter is that Zahel just casually tells Kaladin his secret. Basically without any prodding. If Kaladin had nailed him down afterwards to ask how he was defeated or something, it would have felt more realistic to me. The way it played out seems very ... unlikely / out of character. 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Schneeente

[Goatbringer he/him]

I'm pretty proud of Brandon.

He used an actual swearword. That means that quoting an canonical actual line from one of his works will be censored on this website lol

[Raphaborn]

3 hours ago, Pattern said:

I would interpret it more like: Former Type I and Type II Entities (Returned and Lifeless) are basically the same, they get grouped together into Type II. This makes sense, since Returned are basically Lifeless animated by one Divine Breath. The differences would be the Returned needing Investiture to keep alive while Lifeless just work until the body is too damaged - and the level of awareness. I would call them Type IIa and Type IIb. Cognitive Shadows stapled on a body - not necessary via Awakening, Hemalurgy should work perfectly fine - would fall into either subcategory, depending on whether they need Investiture to keep alive or not.
Type I are now entities of pure Investiture, spontaneously having gained sentience.

I agree. In this case, Type II is now divided into Spontaneous Sentient Manifestations in a Deceased Host and Mindless Manifestations in a Deceased Host.

This further makes me wonder if we will eventually see Spontaneous Mindless Manifestations in a Deceased Host.

[Gilphon]

Just now, Raphaborn said:

I agree. In this case, Type II is now divided into Spontaneous Sentient Manifestations in a Deceased Host and Mindless Manifestations in a Deceased Host.

This further makes me wonder if we will eventually see Spontaneous Mindless Manifestations in a Deceased Host.

Surely Spontaneous Mindless Manifestations in a Deceased Host are what Shades are. Or perhaps what would happen if a Shade got shoved into a body.

[SomeRandomPeasant she/her]

2 hours ago, the_archduke said:

Why do we assume Rlain should be a Windrunner?  Because he was with Bridge 4?  Rock is growing into something else, why not Rlain as well?  

Rlain is becoming Windrunner isn’t due to him being in Bridge Four.  Rlain wants to become a Windrunner.  When Kaladin first tells Rlain that he found an honorspren Rlain could bond with, Rlain was genuinely excited.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that he will automatically become one.  But joining a particular Knights Radiant order is based on the ideals a person strives towards rather than being based on a person's lot in life or their natural personality traits.

[Okishok]

I wonder if the logic fabrials can have their pulse patterned to match up with the Rhythms. I imagine that would be a very effective way to scale up fabrial design and specifically this chapter's newly introduced farming method.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Okishok

[+Oltux72 he/him]

2 hours ago, SomeRandomPeasant said:

I actually think that Rlain will most definitely become a Windrunner. 

Having the Willshapers simply become the "Order of Singers" would be antithetical to the idea of inclusion and racial equality.

Yes, it would be. Why would the Spren care about it?

 

[the_archduke he/him]

The spren seem to have no interest in inclusion and racial equality.  The Lightspren (and 8 other races of sapient spren) were nearly genocided by humans.  Lightspren (at least some of them) are now willing to try a bond with the ancient enemy because they don't trust humans and they still want the Nahel bond. 

Inclusion and racial equality are 21st century earth ideals that I hope we all agree are laudable.  Assuming that the humans and singers of Roshar share these ideals (much less non-human spren sharing them) is... odd.  The Alethi (and Singers) still practice chattel slavery after all, and seem to have no problem with that.  They are not 21 century earthmen, expecting them to act like that isn't reasonable.

[IcaroRibeiro he/him]

I didn't like much Zahel and Kaladin dialogue, it just felt rushed and out of place, just too much explanation that really depends on Warbreaker knowledge to makes sense. It would be superior if this dialogue was sparsed through more chapters rather than this lecture

The fact Kaladin barely understands what Zahel was talking didn't helped the dialogue either 

 

Brandon was always very subtle when inserting Cosmere elements in Stormlight Archive and I'm aware he's trying to change it now, but he needs to find a balance, this writing was SCREAMING Cosmere awareness, rather than just teasing it. Didn't worked for me

About the story itself, I hope Zahel have already shared his knowledge with Dalinar and/or Jasnah, I don't see why would him hide important information about what Fused are supposed to be

Edited October 13, 2020 by IcaroRibeiro

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

He doesn't know something very important about the missing memories, though, Warbreaker spoilers:

 

  Hide contents

Namely, that they begin to resurface when the event that prompted the Return draws near and come back completely immediately before the Returned fulfills their purpose. Personally, I think that the memories are taken to avoid the conflict of multiple future sights and let Endowment steer towards the futures she favors without interference. The Returned are her tools in this endeavor, but they have free will and every individual one can fail to accomplish the goal of their Return. As all the Five Scholars seem to have done.

 

Did they? Endowment may well be playing a VERY long game... She certainly seems to think she has things well in hand...