Necessary Eagle

This is the best explanation I've seen.

Quite aside from the question of whether Dalinar's Radiants accepted Szeth too easily, I'm pretty sure the other heads of state wouldn't. These are the people who nearly backed out of the coalition because they found out that Dalinar had a conversation with Odium. So now Szeth is sworn to Dalinar, and is following him around like a lost puppy. He might not be wearing white anymore, but he's a weird Shin guy with a freaky sword who can walk on walls. People are going to be suspicious. And with Dalinar's new total honesty policy, he's going to have to tell them, "Yeah, he's the Assassin-In-White. But he pinky-swore not to kill people anymore, so it's all right now."

*can't keep herself from yelling out "ME TOO!"*

Why? We already knew she was going to show up before OB came out. If anything, putting Azure's name in the title would be the spoiler.

She killed her father with a necklace.

Thank you. Guess I don't have to go back and reread.

I thought Celebrant was a place in Middle-earth, but I didn't get around to looking it up until just now. Not only that, it's a river- and Shadesmar cities correspond to bodies of water. Any other shout-outs you've found?

I'd have to go reread that passage, but I think we don't really know how much Mr. T told Dalinar.

You. Cannot. Have. ____. Sja-Anat can corrupt ____ into ____. Mraize's pet chicken. A confused dishwasher. Tezim's God-complex.

By "hated", do you mean that we hate them in-universe, or find them to be badly written? Because those are two very different things.

The name "Azure" probably should have been a tip-off, but when she was first introduced, I thought the Highmarshal was a man. By the time Azure's "secret" was revealed, I had already stopped thinking about "his" name and moved on to other stuff. The weird "shardblade" maybe should have been a clue, but to be fair, I don't think anyone was expecting Nightblood 2.0. When Kaladin stated right out that he thought she had found an Honorblade, there was obviously going to some dramatic irony there; I figured it was going to turn out that she was an actual Herald. Except she didn't seem at batguano insane as a Herald. So I didn't know what to think. Then she used Zahel's "white on black" idiom, and that's when I put the book down, and laughed, and started muttering about how I'd found her. When did you guys realize she was Vivenna?

Honestly, given the "mass murderers find redemption" theme of Oathbringer, I wouldn't be too surprised if SA ended with Odium himself laying down his +5 Golden Scepter of Symbolism and reciting the first oath. With the ghosts of Sadeas and Amaram as his squires.

Ahu the drunk beggar guy, in one of the flashbacks.

Shardblades at dawn, then? I, of course, am as eager to fight to the death as any Sadeas disciple. *changes her name to Ookla, slips away in the crowd*

Thank you. I was wondering what was going on.

Bands of Mourning

I'm throwing money at the screen, why is nothing happening??? Aw man, I was gonna propose "The Stormfather moonlighting as a wedding chaplain" for the general Shards Against Humanity thread. Oh well, I wouldn't have been able to post spoilers there for several more months anyway.

This is a thread for only saying good things about Sadeas. He's dead. Good!

Forgot to post yesterday: answer key is out. I... didn't do very well on the predicting front. Maybe next time I should try bonding a Voidspren.

That was about Regrowth. Healing yourself from your own Stormlight works differently.

Well then, I take that back. Good to know.

Oh, that's right. Thanks, @Mulk.

Then things get awkward when Elhokar tries to join them...

So I finished my first reread. My first full read, technically, since the first time I'd skipped the chapters that I'd already read on Tor. I was reminded of some of the mysteries and Significant Things discussed during the Tor months: -There was a debate about Dalinar's vision of the Champion in the first chapter, whether the familiarity he saw in its eyes meant he recognized the person, or the feeling of the Thrill. Given who the champion turned out to be, I think the answer to that one is "yes". -May Aladar is not, in fact, Vivenna, a Radiant, a voidbringer, a love interest, or anyone of note at all so far. -Fill-in-the-blank-here is not Vivenna, either. -Renarin's jaw dropping when Dalinar described the champion. No explanation for that. I guess he'd seen it in a vision? -No explanation for why only Renarin and Shallan could sense Re-Shephir, either. People thought it was their shared surge, but I'm still not quite sure if Renarin actually has regular Illumination. The fact that he used light to make the thunderclast "go" in the battle of Thaylen City- during the Everstorm- makes me suspect he has Voidbinding Illumination. -Shallan's freaky pictures that Pattern didn't see her draw? That got dropped, too. -The toilet, as far as we know, was a perfectly safe place for the Honorblade. -That bit in the epigraphs that had everyone confused, the part about hanging between realms and fates worst than death, presumably refers to the climax. Some things I picked up on my second read: -More evidence is that Tashi = Ishar: Tashi is called "the binder of the world". Ishar is called "the binder of gods". -That picture of Shalash in the endpapers is the one Pom destroyed, isn't it? -Drehy and Skar got away from Kholinar, but there's nothing about Shallan's people. -There's a storming Herald involved in the Diagram. Like, the first time around I only noticed that she was the one who said the end was nigh, but on second read she was the one who wrote an essay for Mr. T slandering Dalinar. Battah's a Diagramist. -I hated the love triangle just as much the second time around. I think it was very poorly written. -Okay, on reread, I don't think Szeth is walking around in white robes anymore. He's probably dressed as a Skybreaker, in a police uniform. Which brings up a different problem: Dalinar and Lift had met Szet before, but how did Jasnah know that the weird Shin guy at Thaylen Field was "the storming Assassin-in-White"?

I thought "him" was Odium, as in "I'm in for a fate worse than death if he catches me betraying him".