10 Crazy Things in Rhythm of War (MASSIVE FULL BOOK SPOILERS)

The scenes that hit me the hardest emotionally are the healing of a broken man scenes. In this case, Dabbid’s PoV. (In OB it was Hobber healing his legs). And I guess also Kaladin saying the 4th oath and doing some healing of his own.

I mean, after reading that Thaidakar was clearly an off world cognitive shadow who wanted to figure out how to world hop and THEN having him referred to as Lord of Scars, my very sleepy, slow brain said "must be someone we already know I wONdEr WhO iT cOuLD Be???" And I seriously just passed it by and thought nothing more of it, assuming it was not something I'd figure out any time soon. 

Kaladin starting a mental health clinic. So many moments in his arc had me tearing up, but when he first finds Noril and is just like “nope, he’s mine now, we’re doing this different.” So good! 
 

The Navani prologue informing her arc of accepting that she truly is awesome. And yes! All the lights! And the tones/rhythms. Her relationship with Raboniel was so great. And I loved seeing the diversity in Fused/Singer attitudes. Brandon is doing great at making sure we see that they as a group and individuals are just as deep and complex as the humans. I so badly want them to be able to find a way to live together. 

That scene with Kaladin and Tien flashback, Teft's and Raboniel's death had me crying like a child. And yo, Taravangian and Odium - that was such a surprise! I was not expecting that! Also was anyone shocked at the amount of cosmere truths bombs dropping everywhere!!!! 

Thaidakar stuff. I mean, I wouldn’t say I knew for sure, but I did strongly suspect his identity.

Yeah, I did not see that coming! And Cultivation’s idea that Taravangian will be able to control the power better, does seem a bit naive to me. Isn’t it a reoccurring theme back to the Scadrial books, that the shards change their vessel’s minds over time to take on their attributes? So Taravangian should retain his own identity for a while (and from what I’ve seen there are major changes already)  but in the end he will still be a vessel of hate who wants to destroy all the other shards.

I’m wondering if Cultivations days will be numbered now she is spending time with him. I hope not too soon, if ever. She’s and interesting mysterious character, and I hope she gets her due in these novels.

Is it a discrepancy that when Raise (possibly misspelled) died, the power moved on to Taravangian when you consider that Taravangian was technically already dead at that point? (Remember he felt his disconnection from his body as Szeth finished him off.) So in effect, the Odium shard is moving from one dead vessel to another.

I guess this could be explained by the fact Raise died as a result of having a massive part of his investiture gobble up by Nightblood, while Taravangian’s body is a freshly dead corpse which can be easily resurrected, so I guess that answers that question.

made some progress in this novel in dealing with their mental illnesses. Still very much a work in progress but a big step. I thought the sympathetic and empathetic way Brandon wrote about dealing with those with mental illnesses, was lovely in this novel. Not something that really crops up in fantasy novels, but a major theme in this series, especially in this novel.

are dealt with as three dimensional characters. As these use voidlight and were brought back by Odium, and these and their cohorts are empowered by voidspren, it would have been easy to just depict them as one dimensional evil monsters like orcs, trollocs, murdraal, etc. Let’s face it, Ashonaii went from being a very sympathetic good at heart character to becoming a ruthless warlord once she took on Stormform (although this novel is clear she did come right in the end. A lovely little epilogue for her.) Not at all. I mean they obviously are affected, but at their core they’re just people trying to make the best of it. Pursuer excepted. He was an all-out scumbag, but one or two are fine. 
 

Who saw Raboniel as being the big bad of this novel, when first introduced?

Well I guess she was for a while, but became very nuanced quite quickly. And her ending.... wow.

... or rather the living kind in this case. If Skydancer armour plates are made up of Windspren,  I wonder what spren are making up Jasnah’s armour. Note, the armour she wears in this battle scene isn’t the usual shardplate. She has sworn the 4th ideal already, and from the way her  armour acts (she has to intentionally reduce the glow, and her helmet vanishes at will) it’s clear to me that she is wearing real living spren armour.

It seems that shardplate is made up of the less intelligent spren that are related to the spren that grants the heralds their powers. Honourspren with Windspren makes sense. Inkspren, though....? I wonder what other spren they’re related to, or if things work differently with other orders.

These seem to work a bit differently to how they have before. I seem to remember that Szeth had to carry his sword in the early novels. The characters with honourblades in this novel can dismiss and summon them like regular shardblades. Maybe something to do with bonding, or am I missing something? I do forget things. Odium! Keep out of my noggin!

The simple, yet massive concept of "anti-Investiture" alone was worth the price of admission.