robardin

Since this is the Oathbreaker sub-forum, I can say without spoiler tags that c'mon, everyone at Dalinar's wedding to Navani must think Shshshsh is dead. And oh - a minor Unfettered II / The Thrill spoiler reference in a stylistic question: Anyway, the way the others are surprised and shocked that he doesn't remember anything about her life or death is about what you'd expect from a "OMG you totally got Nightwatcher'ed bro" reaction, versus a sudden thought of "OMG we only ever heard of her death through Dalinar, and now even he can't recall the details?" I think they all KNOW she's dead. Like, seen and buried the body. As for the comment about Sanderson not "really" killing characters.... That's kind of overblown. Ym's dead, Tien is dead, the other dead Bridge Four members who were killed are dead... Dead is dead. The "ha ha, not dead" characters like Szeth and Jasnah, or You-Know-Who from Mistborn (I'm not going to bother to spoiler a name drop like that), were NEVER supposed to be "all dead", which fact was heavily hinted at early on, or their not-dead scenes were pretty closely following their left-for-dead one.

I have a feeling this has been done already, but I quickly did a scan of passages where Renarin says something in TWoK. Not a whole lot grabs my attention... Ch. 12 - Wit shows up and uncharacteristically teases Renarin about walking the warcamp with him with picking up not one but two women, causing Renarin to blush while denying it. Ch. 15 - Wit challenges Renarin to say something, but nothing ridiculous, and Renarin replies with the phrase, "nothing ridiculous". Ch. 18 - Renarin is the first one to notice an unexpected highstorm. Ch. 52 - Renarin is described as seeming like he's about to have a seizure when being present during one of Dalinar's visions, and seems to have some knowledge of the Nightwatcher, enough to rule out the visions as being related to Dalinar's visit (since his bane would have manifested at that time, rather than now). Renarin is also the one to discuss verifying what Dalinar sees in his visions - specfically, the Day of Recreance at a Feverstone Keep - by cross-referencing details with other known facts. Ch. 60 - he shows intense interest in Navani's anesthetic fabrial. Ch. 61 - he asks Navani about the Desolations, and mentions that his mother had told him a story, "The Origin of the Makabaki", about people born from rocks. Ch. 69 - Renarin seems extremely agitated and upset about Sadeas' (false) news of Dalinar and Adolin dying while getting overwhelmed by Parshendi; then, he is very glad to see them both arrive alive. Bwuh? ...Maybe the first time we see Renarin is the reveal? He was Lightweaving a pair of attractive girls for himself?!

The Shard of Smugness But hemalurgy with an argentium spike would be very useful

AHA I missed that

How about this: just confirm the "clues" are in "Words of Radiance" alone (not in "Way of Kings")

My first and still best guess is the Ghostbloods, but I can totally see Ialai being behind it, as well. Hey - maybe Ialai is in the Ghostbloods!

I don't think Renarin's fits have to do with his foretelling; he's had the seizures since childhood, which means Stormlight may not heal him of it, if his self-image now extends to include it. Interestingly, his near-sightedness was apparently healed by Stormlight, so I guess he only recently started needing glasses (I don't remember when that was brought up, except that Dalinar comments on his having stopped wearing them at the end of Words of Radiance as evidence of Stormlight use). AFAIK Ym is the only "confirmed" Truthwatcher we've seen, via WoB, and Ym didn't "see" Darkness coming to get him, which you'd think would be something a foretelling talent might have done. Which along with Syl's comment about the countdown glyphs is why I continue to be a little suspicious about Renarin's foretelling, but am willing to allow that it could be derived from Cultivation rather than Odium, and certainly don't mean to imply that Renarin has "gone bad".

Nice catch. As I realized, the fact that we haven't seen Renarin do any lightweaving doesn't really imply anything - we haven't had a POV from him, and the whole point of lightweaving is typically that other people don't pierce the illusion (being a human 3D projector notwithstanding). Since I'm posting this from work, I now have an image of Dalinar "commandeering" either Renarin's or Shallan's lightweaving at the next meeting to go over his ideas with maps and illustrations, complete with him kicking Renarin while saying, "next slide, please".

Yeah, again from Secret History, we see that there are ... artificial ways to engender Connection and/or Identity in a way that would almost certainly enable someone to use the mists.

Oh, that is a good point. I'd forgotten about those sketches. Both times she was just freehanding, right?

A countdown?! THIS IS NOT SOMETHING OF HONOR IT'S SOMETHING DANGEROUS

She was definitely talking about the countdown. Words of Radiance, Ch. 5:

Some info and comments below are based on Mistborn: Secret History and the Mistborn Era 2 books.

Yeah, a few of us have speculated that Elhokar is off doing something related to what Dalinar spoke to him of at his marriage to Navani. Possibly involving the riots in Kholinar (where his wife and child are), making use of the Windrunner Honorblade, or both. (egad.)

Two things in particular feel off to me. Both of them can be partially "explained away", but still, they're there. First, what defines a Radiant? Being bonded to a spren that grants the ability to use Stormlight to fuel two Surges and to heal or to draw upon for physical strength/stamina, and a "resonance" that is unique to each Order and further to each individual. As Radiants progress in their Ideals we see that they get more efficient with their use of Stormlight, eventually gain the use of their spren as a Shardblade (unclear if this is a thing of the Third Ideal for all orders, as it was with Kaladin but maybe not with Shallan?), and who knows, we may learn more about Shardplate as we see Radiants get to the Fifth Ideal. We've seen a few other Radiants in the story so far: Kaladin, Shallan, Lift, and Dalinar. We've seen a few other characters as Surgebinders as well; Ym the cobbler, and a few others from Edgedancer: Surgebinders may have some affinity for using one Surge over the other (e.g., Shallan figured out how to Lightweave fairly well, but still can't Soulcast reliably even after the Third Ideal), but the ability is there even from the First Ideal. So, what's off about Renarin? 1 - Surgebinding. Specfiically, the lack thereof. We have a WoB that Ym was (on the path to becoming) a Truthwatcher, exhibiting the surge of Progression (healing), and just before Darkness caught and killed him, his spren was urging him to use "light" (possibly to make a wall illusion, like Shallan later did). But we haven't seen Renarin do any Surgebinding. Possible Rebuttal: Truthwatchers are described in the original (in-universe) "Words of Radiance" as "secretive". So maybe he's been healing or Lightweaving and we just haven't seen him do it, or evidence of him having done it. Though even so, Ym did gain a reputation for "helping" injured kids, even though the mechanism wasn't known. Also, as noted, Renarin is visibly on the "autism spectrum", which could also make him have less of an affinity for actively reaching out to heal others. And maybe he HAS been Lightweaving, and we haven't noticed it (after all, part of the point of Lightweaving is to make illusions that fool people). 2 - Foretelling. This is the bigger one. We have only his statement and example that Truthwatchers "see" the future, versus Syl's statement that the glyphs counting down to the Everstorm (that Renarin admitted to being the source of) was "seeing what is to come - it isn't of Honor. It's something else. Something dangerous." Again this is in contrast to Ym, the only other known Truthwatcher, who didn't "see" Darkness coming to snuff him out. And what do you know, the specific thing that Renarin foresaw was definitely something of Odium (the Everstorm - maybe even worse, as he kept saying "we're dead, we're dead, we're dead"), and not something else like "hey, I can SEE how to use the Oathgates". Possible Rebuttal: Syl also expressed distaste for "liespren", but that doesn't make Shallan any less a Radiant; so maybe whatever flavor of foretelling Renarin can do is just something another type of Radiant spren (without being voidspren?) enables that Syl just doesn't care for. We definitely see Renarin having a "bad reaction" to touching a Shardblade in the dueling arena, and his nearsightedness has indeed been healed, presumably by Stormlight or his own Surgebinding. Hence my suggestion that perhaps he is a Truthwatcher, but one that's been somehow influenced or co-opted ("corrupted" being too strong a word) by something else, as implied by his foretelling.

I don't think Renarin is "evil", simply that there's something Not Quite Right about his Radiancy. (Is that the right term?) It may even be something that's happened to him SINCE becoming a Truthwatcher.

I went back to reread it and you are right.

We could both be right. He could be literally flying off to "fix" the situation in Kholinar. Anybody else feel a little frisson of unease at the idea of Elhokar as a Windrunner "without the checks a spren requires"?

maxal's recap reminded me to ask: hey, where was Elhokar during Dalinar's little council that he waited for Shallan to arrive at to begin? You know, the KING? Either this was a major diss on Elhokar, or - what I think is actually the case - whatever Dalinar meant by saying to him that "I have things to discuss with you. Plans that you might appreciate" at his marriage to Navani is now in motion. I think it has to do with the situation in Kholinar, where Elhokar's wife and child are, and which appears to be in a state of some unrest. An ideal scenario for Elhokar to show some leadership and strength... With some prepping and guidance from Dalinar.

I thought that even the "dead" Shardblades reformed themselves to fit the lock, but wouldn't turn. But you're right, I don't think Honorblades can reform themselves the way that Sprenblades can, even the (mostly) dead ones. (Great, now I'm thinking of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride saying, "it so happens your spren here is only MOSTLY dead! There's a big difference between mostly dead, and all dead... Mostly dead, is slightly alive!")

You mean "cremlings all the way down", LOL And if you're going to hunker down and RAFO, well, you've come to the wrong part of the forum!

He's definitely planning on bringing his family - at least his mother and new baby brother, if Lirin insists on staying at Hearthstone to work as a surgeon - to Urithiru, which is surely the place he meant as a safe haven. How he's going to bring them there is another question.

Here's more "suspicious stuff": - Ym (the cobbler that Darkness killed) was confirmed by a WoB to be a Truthwatcher in the making, and we saw him using his powers to heal children. Yet we've never seen Renarin do any Surgebinding at all, neither Progression (healing) nor Illumination (lightweaving). - Nobody has ever seen him talking to his spren the way people have caught Kaladin and Shallan do. Only that "Glys" told him he's a Truthwatcher. - We only have his word that he's stopped wearing his glasses because he used Stormlight to heal them. There might be other reasons. - We also have indication that he was a Surgebinder because he couldn't bear to touch a Shardblade in the arena with Adolin. But again, there might have been other reasons. - Foretelling the future is repeatedly stated to be something of the Unmade. We only have Renarin's own word that Truthwatchers "see", or that what that means is that the see the future. Or maybe he was a Truthwatcher-to-be at one time, but has since been... Co-opted.

But that makes even less sense - the Diagrammers (Taravangian's crew) wanted Dalinar dead! Graves' support for Moash's assassination attempt was actually meant to keep Kaladin away from Dalinar so Szeth could get at him. The Sons of Honor are the other known secret society with a potential aim in having Dalinar in power, since he's now openly a Radiant and refounding the Orders, which is something they had as a goal.