vividox

Just because I'm having a hard time waiting until November 14th, I thought it might be worth the time to compare the chapters released so far to the original outline to see where we are at and what could potentially happen. Here is a link to the outline shared in Stormlight Three Update #5: Here is what we know so far: Flashbacks: Dalinar Primary Main Character: Dalinar Secondary Main Character 1: Kaladin or Shallan Secondary Main Character 2: Shallan or Kaladin Short Story Collection: Eshonai Tertiary Character #?: Adolin Notes: * Secondary Main Character 1/2 is definitely Kaladin and Shallan, but I'm not sure we have enough to say who is 1 and who is 2. Unless I'm missing something, we may not know until we get to Part 2, where SMC1 will get very little POV time. * Short Story Collection: I can only imagine this is a short story collection on Eshonai, since we saw her in the prologue, and the outline depicts the short story collection starting at the beginning of Part 1. * Outside of that, Adolin has received a POV chapter already; while the outline doesn't explicitly state any tertiary characters gets a Part 1 POV, Brandon has historically played a little loose with these. That being said, we don't know whether Adolin is TC1, 2, 3, or 4, so it's hard to say which part will feature more of him. Likely candidates for interlude POVs or novelettes: Szeth, Eshonai, Jasnah, Adolin, Navani (these were specifically mentioned by Brandon in Update #2). I also wouldn't be too surprised to see an appearance by Nale, specifically because Brandon saw Edgedancer as a necessity in order to advance Nale's character progression before we got to Oathbringer. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? First of all, we should acknowledge that Sanderson has a tendency to finish each part on a cliffhanger. In addition, Sanderson views the entire five parts as a sort of trilogy, where part 1 is the first "book", parts 2 and 3 form the second "book", and parts 4 and 5 form the final "book". I'd speculate that this means the bigger cliffhangers will be coming at the ends of parts 1 and 3. What are the cliffhangers going to be? I think two of the biggest cliffhangers have to be (1) Adolin being accused of murdering Sadeas and (2) Jasnah returning to society / finding her way to Urithiru. It would then make sense for Adolin and Jasnah to be tertiary characters in books following their respective cliffhangers. Based on Brandon's comments about Parts 2 and 3 (Part 2 is more character and lore focused while three is more fast paced and climactic) I'm lead to speculate that we'll see Jasnah return at the end of Part 1 and Adolin be accused at the end of Part 2. Based on this, my speculation is: Tertiary Character 1: Jasnah - who will return at the end of Part 1 and have a significant role in Parts 2 and 4 Tertiary Character 2: Adolin - who will be accused of murder at the end of Part 2 and have a significant role in Part 3 Tertiary Character 3: Hoid (?!) - who was last seen with Jasnah and could potentially accompany her to Urithiru to help info dump (could we be so lucky?) Other ideas on potential cliffhangers: (A) the Everstorm returns and some Parshendi do actually turn into Voidbringers, (B) Something happens between Shallan and the Ghostbloods, (C) Taravangian arriving at Urithiru / attempting to kill Dalinar, (D) Something else. Anywho, I'd imagine that all the preview chapters we're going to get are Part 1 + Interludes, so I don't know how much info we're going to get here before the actual book drops on November 14th, but if you guys have anything I missed or anything else comes up in the Preview Chapters, I'll update this post. But as of right now, I've pretty well convinced myself that Jasnah's return will be the end of Part 1 and Adolin's accusation will be the end of the Part 2.

Ah, I'd completely forgotten about that. Thanks.

Remind me about what happened to Lift, it's been awhile.

The more and more I think on this, I think Dalinar's curse lifting has more to do with his use of Stormlight than marrying Navani. Before Oathbringer, Dalinar never used Stormlight. We know Dalinar has been sneaking down to the Honorblade room to train with the Stomrfather, and we know that includes learning how to draw Stormlight because the end of the duel is the first time we actually see Dalinar use Stormlight on screen. Navani then casually mentions Evi's name again, and, unlike all the other times, he can actually understand it. It seems to me like the motivating factor here is that Dalinar has simply learned to use Stormlight since the last time anyone mentioned her around him. We've already seen multiple ways Stormlight can heal you, and healing a curse seems to fit. We know the Old Magic has to be some sort of investiture, which means it's capable of interacting with Stormlight, so... yeah, I am really talking myself into thinking it's Stormlight and not the curse changing its focus from Evi to Navani based on the technicality of marriage. Also also, if the curse's technicality was that he couldn't remember his wife, but could remember his ex-wife, then why couldn't he remember Evi after she died?

We are in the middle of part one of five...

Yeah, there is absolutely no way Adolin is getting off the hook. You have met Ialai, right?

Oooh, Honorblade exposition. Juicy. ZAHEL! Yeeeesh! Ah, gone so soon? BS is teasing us. Did we know before now that The Thrill was ONLY an Alethi thing? Seems important. And investature-like. 'Gemheart' being used as a term of endearment, that's kind of adorable. Adolin's shardplate was "stolen" from Iri - Dalinar's past comes back to haunt him again. Whoa, No more Shshsh? Her name is Evi. Did Stormlight heal his mind? --- "They've been healed, Connection refounded, Identity restored." Aw, look at our boy Kal, making friends with parshmen. --- Shallan's lies are wrong... maybe she's taking on a little too much with her personas? Shallan the alcoholic. Hmmm, second double murder. Interesting...

Here's my take on Kaladin / Shallan / Adolin: it's going to be messy. A lot of people are painting their preferred couple in a very Disney light, and I just don't see that happening. All three are very flawed characters, and I think there are going to be some mistakes, some drama, and some hurt feelings along the way. Sanderson is pretty good with relationships, and Marasi / Wax / Steris was a great example of how he's willing to let romantic situations evolve instead of just "happily ever after" them at the end of the first book. There is a lot of Stormlight left, and a lot of time for Shallan to become enamored with one, surprised by the other, make a stupid decision, piss them both off, create drama, and add an extra layer of uncertainty to everything else that is going on.

But like someone above said, they've known each other for like two months and haven't exactly had a lot of time to work on their relationship, what with the Everstorm and Radiants coming back and everything. Perhaps the reason you don't feel like they love each other is because they don't, they are still very much in the infatuation stage and love isn't even on the radar yet.

I very much doubt it. It's just great opportunity to learn more on a subject that, clearly, no one knows anything about. And it's not like he's really putting himself in danger when he's got a Shardblade up his sleeve.

Well, this is the epic series, not the fast paced action series like Wax and Wayne or Reckoners are. Also, reading only three chapters at a time makes it feel even slower. We're not going to get a big plot device every single week reading it this way.

“Inappropriate?” Pattern said. “Such as… dividing by zero?” Love. It.

I'm wont to agree, but just to play Devil's Advocate... This book is about showing how the Blackthorn was, essentially, a bad guy. Something about his past moved him to use Old Magic to change himself. I haven't read Unfettered, but someone mentioned above that it gets worse. We've already seen allusions to rape in Alethi society, and painting the Blackthorn in this light could potentially be huge narrative justification for whatever happened at the Nightwatcher.

Good analysis. Put that way, it definitely does seem to have been about the altercation with the wife/boy and not Navani. So, getting particularly gruesome... Emphasis mine. So... Dalinar is in full Thrill mode, sees a woman he describes as "beautiful", she is alone except for her child, the child says "You can't have my daddy," so... is it possible Dalinar's response was "If I can't have your daddy, I'll have your mommy?" That seems particularly dark, even for what we know the Thrill to be. Still, I can't help but think this is a possibility.

For the record, I think the only shame Dalinar feels there is shame for his feelings for Navani. That whole interlude is framed by Dalinar internalizing his feelings for Navani, not wanting to take a wife unless commanded to do so, and never wanting Gavilar to find out about his feelings for Navani. Due to the placement of that line, it's entirely possible that there is some kind of trickery going on with the heir/wife, but honestly, I feel like Sanderson just didn't want to write such a gruesome scene. I guess we'll RAFO eventually.

Definitely just me reading into things. The only part that really even got me thinking that way was this: Mostly, I just want in Renarin's head and overhear a conversation between him and Glys. Or something. If mysterious people are intriguing, a mysterious type of Radiant is even more so.

Oh wow, that Taravanagian ending, tho. Really stacking the dominos to fall, aren't we, Mr. Sanderson? Syl-voyeur is... uh, interesting. Renarin is awkward as ever, but now he has POWERS! I get the sense that he really does believe he's Odium's champion... Kind of missing Shallan and Mraize right now.

I've been on vacation the last week so I never got a chance to comment, but wow I loved these chapters. - Kaladin punching Roshone, but not letting it regress any of the progress he's made. Felt like having your cake and eating it too, in a very good way. - Renarin is killing me. He knows things, man. And some stuff, too. I want inside his head already! - Where the heck is Jasnah? I kind of expected her to show up somewhere by now. Maybe her return will be the end of part I? Really looking forward to the infodump (please?) when she returns. Also looking forward to a slightly awkward Jasnah/Shallan reunion. - Why is November 14th so far away?

Gotcha gotcha gotcha. For some reason, the way you stated it here was clearer to me. I'm on board now, carry on.

So is the word atheist just being abused here? Because atheist simply means non-belief in gods, not "I acknowledge these things exist but don't worship them". And it's still possible that Jasnah could be salty about being called a heretic when all she is doing is pursuing the truth.

Jasnah is an atheist now - but that is a particularly strange position to have when we as readers knows that Honor existed at some point and Honor is nearly synonymous with the Vorin idea of the Almighty. She's going to find out about Honor and Shards and Adonalsium eventually. When she does, it will be impossible to call herself an atheist anymore. She may well be called a heretic in the scope of Vorinism, however. In the same way Dalinar is being called a heretic for claiming the Almighty is dead. That epigraph could still be a red herring, but I could absolutely see how Jasnah could say something like that after she stumbles upon some Cosmere secrets - or even after her little vacation in Shadesmar.

Oh, and way more than last week, I really wish I could turn the page and keep reading. These three chapters really sucked me in.

Oh boy, I really liked 4-6. Great scenes between Dalinar and Navani; adorable wedding. Kaladin's just as miserable as ever, I see. Punching Roshone across the face was pretty awesome, though. Is Jasnah the author of Oathbringer?

My reaction was actually flip-flopped. I liked the Prologue and then felt like the first few chapters dipped in quality. And - just for clarification - I don't mean to poo-poo on the writing quality with my comment. I just meant it read more like a Young Adult novel than a Adult Fantasy novel in several places. Brandon isn't necessarily a big prose guy in the first place, and I have no problem with that, but there were several parts in the first few chapters that seemed jarringly simplistic to me.

Perhaps when Kaladin ascends to a new ideal and gains the ability to have squires, all his squires get an immediate burst effect, followed by a diminished latent proximity effect. (Kind of similar to how the Aons in Elantris were "holding back" the Investiture that wanted to break through)