robardin

How did he get there, and where is he now (since he can't leave except by Oathgate, which is to say, by grace of Shallan)? I don't think we know, right? When she saw him at the end of WoR Shallan assumes "he'd likely been among the armies, somewhere", but at the same time, Mraize appeared to her "twisted and scarred, yet somehow refined in his gentleman's clothing" (i.e., he's not in some kind of disguise, not even makeup to cover his scarred visage, much less some kind of uniform). You'd think he'd stand out in the small group of people she'd brought in via Oathgate. Even if he passes for a lighteyes with his violet peepers, and many officers outside of Dalinar's camp dress finely and not in uniform when off-duty, his twisted and scarred face should be easy to identify, and he was originally described as speaking Alethi with a foreign accent, one that Shallan could not place (of course not, if he's from off-world).

Not going to say why, and this really should be obvious, but... NOBODY ELSE POST ANYTHING ON THIS THREAD UNTIL THE OP HAS COME BACK AFTER COMPLETING "THE HERO OF AGES". Let's not potentially Ruin anything for him.

Oh I missed this reply when I posed my question just now. That makes sense. Two more POVs of that night left, then. I'm guessing Gavilar for the fourth one, when we have more insight into what he was up to with those black gems containing the "gods of the Parshendi", and one of the Heralds In Disguise that were there (WHY were there MULTIPLE Heralds there, anyway? Can't be a coincidence)

That's a WoB I'd like to read. Each prologue, of all ten books? Or just Stormlight 1-5 which form one complete meta-arc unto themselves? I was hoping to find out about what kinds of "shadows" Elhokar sees before Stormlight 4 or 5 (or later). Also some insight into what that little black gem/vial thingy was, especially since after Eshonai's prologue POV, we now know there was more than one of them!

Right. "Hate the game, not the player", eh?

Yet Mraize counted him as having joined the Ghostbloods when talking to Shallan in Urithiru, something he explicitly had not so done with Tyn:

The right way to view Tyn as a character is a portal into the Ghostbloods organization, that they'd use someone like Tyn to further their goals but not admit her to their number, but did admit Shallan's father. What Shallan initially shows them as Veil is a braver, more directly capable version of Tyn - someone who can dissemble, don a disguise and play a convincing role, but also kill to further her goals (as she admitted offing Tyn, not mentioning the self-defense aspect). And as Mraize comments, that persona is who the Ghostbloods think Shallan actually is - "be Veil with us, and Shallan Davar, the conformist Radiant, with them".

What coincidence? Tyn was sent by the Ghostbloods to murder Jasnah, and therefore would have been close to hand to determine its success or failure, and Shallan was with Jasnah when the attack occurred. So for Shallan to run into Tyn when she made landfall and started to look for people to help her reach the Alethi warcamps is perfectly reasonable. But for her Surgebinding, by all rights Shallan should have been killed along with everyone else on the ship, had the attack gone as Tyn had planned; or, as Tyn would have expected, that Shallan died with everyone else on the ship when it sank. So Tyn had no reason to suspect Shallan of being Jasnah's ward, and thus, no reason not to take Shallan's story at face value (boosted by a little Lightweaving for extra believability). The implausible part might be, if Tyn was so skilled, why didn't she find a way to get on board Jasnah's ship herself (as a deckhand or something), and be present for the attack? I think that speaks to Tyn's nature of hiding in the shadows and working indirectly and/or remotely, which Mraize commented on with some contempt (ultimately noting that they had never admitted Tyn into their membership, and she had been considered "game all along").

I agree on #1 that Jasnah is "the obvious choice" based on what we know from Stormlight 1 and 2. I also agree that, being wise to Brandon's shenanigans by now, that means it almost certainly isn't Jasnah. Whether or not that means your #2, that it's a whole new character we haven't been introduced to before, eh, that's kind of not his style either, unless as in Mistborn: The Final Empire the author of the in-world work is actually being introduced to us as a character through the chapter headings; or if per your #3, it's a character that's been talked about tangentially or in the third person for some time by the main characters. But Shshshsh? I dunno. Not if that would require being like Jasnah, at any rate, as Navani describes her as being practically the opposite of Jasnah, in TWoK Ch. 64: Nice, never inappropriate, sweet but not clever, bullying, or manipulative, where becoming a Surgebinder requires being "broken" in the soul in some way to be able to form a spren bond. I mean, it could become true; I would be very interested to see how her portrait would change to make it plausible. But from what we know of Shshshsh right now, it'd be an unusual thing to predict.

I'm gonna give this a shot some time this weekend, but I'll be honest: my go-to move is going to be to PM Argent, and if I'm right, to join him in the Fun Bunker.

Are you suggesting Ialai committed the Second Murder herself, personally? Would she, a middle-aged woman, be physically capable of doing that to a trained officer, in what was clearly a prolonged struggle? Because if it wasn't her doing it personally while being the one who saw Sadeas' body in its original arrangement, then I don't think commissioning the murder by proxy assassin wouldn't be a good enough basis. I can't see a verbal description of things being good enough for as exact a duplication as the eyewitnesses describe. I agree that if Mraize did it, it was because he was there to see it happen, not that he somehow stumbled upon Sadeas' body after the fact and decided to monkey around; and that if he wasn't there to see it, there is no real reason to suspect his or the Ghostblood's involvement in Murder #2. Not enough of a rationale to go on, unless we get some more info later. However, I am not 100% sold on reading into Brandon's comment that "there were no witnesses [at all]", if the comment was this one: (sorry for quoting an indirect quote, but after a few minutes of looking at the comments on the Tor website under the Oathbringer preview Chapters 1-3, and even 4-6, I didn't see anything posted by Brandon?) - It could be that the context of "nobody" means "nobody in the Alethi camps" (i.e., nobody from either Dalinar's or Sadeas/Ialai's factions). After all, if having the reader wonder who might know about Adolin's actions and how were going to be a significant point in Oathbringer (and to me it SHOULD be, at this point of the story - I love that we're having this discussion!), he wouldn't just come out and say "no, don't worry about that angle, move along". And technically, I would say, he didn't do that. On the other hand, if Brandon truly did NOT mean that to be a significant part of reading Oathbringer, he might well feel free to drop that kind of an offhand statement in the comment section of an internet discussion. That's not sarcasm, that genuinely is something I think he would do. So, I certainly can't rule it out, either.

I see. That wasn't clear to me on first read but yeah, I see that now

A Herald, a Worldhopper, an Aimian, ... Really? She's just like that teacher you had in high school who looked 60 years old when you were there, when 60 was like being at death's door to you, and looked exactly the same when you went back for the tenth year reunion.

Well, it's only the title of the book. Heh heh. Hey, maybe the chapter headings are transcribed from the dead spren in the Blade that is Oathbringer! Didn't die, but something much worse! (Kidding)

Didn't the female Radiant in that vision heal people with the Surge of Progression? So either an Edgedancer or Truthwatcher. EDIT: Yep, TWoK Ch. 19, she heals "Heb" (Dalinar's role) and his wife and calls it Regrowth. We don't see her using either Lightwesving or Slickness in the fight, though.

Hmm. I'm guessing one may not physically age while in the Cognitive Realm, since it's not Physical.

I'm late to this Easter Egg hunt, but game. Just to clarify, is this so-called blatant hint about the nature of Renarin's foretelling, or about his Surgebinding?

I was speed re-reading The Way of Kings for no reason earlier today (totally unrelated to any desire to uncover the Secret Page About Renarin That Only Argent Knows About, really!), and got to the part where Dalinar up and kisses Navani (bolding mine, of course): Hrm? Whatever Gavilar did that made him "not what everyone thought him to be" gave Navani "ample reason" to be unfaithful to him, even if she did not choose to do so. Did he cheat on her? If this were many another fantasy series, a suggestion that King Gavilar may have sired bastard children would be something of a bombshell, but I don't see that being the case in Stormlight Archive. There's no special power inherited through the Kholin bloodline, and no apparent political power to be gained from someone suddenly claiming to be Gavilar's bastard, so what could be getting set up here? Or is it that Gavilar had... other preferences that left Navani wanting, despite having Jasnah and Elhokar by him? That's not something I'd expect from Sanderson, not just out of a concern for prurience, but because there doesn't seem to be any plot element yet introduced over 2,000 pages that would be filled by such a thing. It could just be as simple as setting Navani up to be a virtuous type woman, but that didn't need an especial knockdown of dead Gavilar's character to achieve, did it?

I'm sure it's not a coincidence. The chapter heading for Words of Radiance, Ch. 35 has this quote from the in-world Words of Radiance: Who or what was Nahel, to get the spren-bond effect named for him/her/it? What does that mean, "the bonds that drive Roshar itself", and why would they be called "Surges" anyway, instead of "powers" or something, except that storms have surges, and Roshar has periodic highstorms of Investiture?

That's a bombshell and a half to me. Whoa.

Do you think Mraize's motives are obvious, if it's him? The most likely reason is to gain leverage on Shallan - which only works if Mraize saw the murder occur. (Which I think is the most likely.) But it's still also possible that Mraize doesn't know it's Adolin, and was the putative person who found the body before its discovery by Bridge Four/Sadeas' corps, and didn't report it to anyone - that is, nobody not in the Ghostbloods. And that the conclusion of whatever the Ghostblood's motives are, which we don't really know, was "do something to flush out the real killer", which this act qualifies as, in a very Ghostbloody way. As for Perel possibly not being innocent, I meant innocent of deserving death at this particular time, at that particular place (Urithiru), and in this manner. It seems pretty clear he was used primarily as a prop to send a message. He'd never even appeared in SA in any capacity before, right? So him turning out to have been "secretly involved in something all along" would be kind of terrible writing?

I posted my detailed thinking in this post in the other thread about "Who's the Copycat Murderer?", but it boils down to this: - The killer either saw Sadeas' murder as it happened, or didn't see it happen, but was there to see the body before it was moved. It can't be "some random serial killer latching on to the MO to mask his thrill kills", unless someone in Bridge Four or Sadeas' guard corps just went off the rails for no reason, and Brandon Sanderson is not that kind of writer. - If the killer saw Sadeas' murder (and therefore knows it was Adolin), Ialai is not behind the second murder, because she'd be focused on getting justice for her husband, plus it would be an immediate takedown of Dalinar's standing. That leaves Mraize, or possibly, a member of Bridge Four who is trying to shield Adolin, but also willing to commit cold-blooded murder of an ally, which doesn't seem very Bridge Four-ish (the whole "Windrunner Squire" bit would kind of fall down, yeah?). So, that would pretty much mean Mraize. - If the killer did NOT see the murder, and we rule out Bridge Four's ability to do precise and cold-blooded ally-murdering, it would mean a trained assassin was among Sadeas' guards (not unlikely, really), and that the killer does NOT know who Sadeas' killer was. The most likely scenario in this case: Ialai ordered the Second Murder as (a) a reprisal killing and message to The Other Team that We Are Not Done, and (b) a way to see who from Dalinar's side is acting in a way that suggests they also know the two murders were not, in fact, done by the same person. Because only two people would know that, right? The one responsible for Murder #1 (Sadeas), and the one responsible for Murder #2 (Ialai and her agent). Everybody else would assume - is assuming - that it was the same killer. And uh-oh. Adolin isn't very good as dissembling.

Let's break it down into the logical components: Fact #1: a ruthless and cold-blooded killer is in Urithiru, willing to kill an innocent person in a grisly and very specific manner, to achieve a specific aim. Fact #2: the precise mimicking of the way Sadeas was killed means the killer either (a) saw, first hand, either Sadeas' murder as it happened, or (b) was not present for the event, but saw the body before it was moved shortly after Dalinar was called to the scene. We know the people to see Sadeas' body before Dalinar - basically, the members of Bridge Four who found it, and the members of Sadeas' guards who arrived soon thereafter, looking for Sadeas. There is also the remote possibility that the Second Killer is not in either group, but is someone who was already in Urithiru who saw Sadeas' body before its discovery without seeing the actual murder, and just disappeared without informing anybody else. Until we see any reason for anybody to have done this, let's ignore this possibility as pointless. It doesn't seem like Bridge Four or a member of Sadeas' guard corps would have a reason to do #2, which is why to my mind, Mraize is the most likely killer, and the motive remains unclear. Since he just discovered Shallan = Veil, and mentioned her debt to the Ghostbloods in the context of her family, this would be another way to tie her to them, with blackmail about her betrothed Adolin. This would also mean Mraize saw the murder happen, to know it was Adolin. On the other hand, if there were a skilled assassin employed by Ialai who was kept hidden (yet close to hand) among Sadeas' guards, it would also make sense - she'd know how he was killed, not exactly by whom, but would assume it was Dalinar's group, if not by his direct command. In which case, the killing of Vedekar Perel would represent a reprisal killing ordered by her, to convey the message "we can do the eye-stabby, murder-and-disappear thing, too". In addition, it would help flush out the real killer of Sadeas, exactly because Ialai would know they were not the same killer: look for someone whose behavior reveals that they ALSO know the killer was not the same, and you've found someone who knows who killed Sadeas. And as my quote highlighted in the Oathbringer 7-9 thread about Adolin trying to figure out Kaladin's secret Surgebinding powers ("you know... the, um, stuff?"), Adolin is probably not going to be very good at keeping that knowledge from showing. I see no reason to posit "Adolin was out of his skull and did a second, unconscious yet very carefully executed murder of an allied highprince's officer under Odium's influence that exactly mirrored how he killed Sadeas earlier in an unplanned moment of rage", that's just nuts.

Widening this question a bit - is there an official and canonical, or even a fan-made and best-guess, timeline that correlates events across Cosmere works? I know Warbreaker happens before Way of Kings, but have always wondered about Nazh/Khriss being on Scadrial around the time of Ruin's release at the Well of Ascension (per Mistborn: Secret History), yet also there for Khriss to dance with Wax in Era 2, and for Nazh to make sketches of Bridge Four's tattoos and fetch Shallan's lost sketches from when the boat sank at the start of Words of Radiance. Demoux and Galladon being at the Purelake certainly raise questions about this as well.

See, this is why I named Hoid as an overrated character in Stormlight Archive. Once you start looking for Hoid, you spot him everywhere. it's distracting and habit-forming! I mean, there I was, reading a book with my small nephew, when it hit me: this guy appears out of nowhere, flabbergasts everyone around him with strange statements that suggest he knows what's Really Going On Behind The Scenes, and inspires actions in others they may not have otherwise been on the path to doing, with hints that it's all towards some unknown personal agenda of his own... HOLY CRAP, HOID IS THE CAT IN THE HAT!