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I'm hoping he's going to emerge from this slump to swear the 4th AND 5th Oaths towards the end of the book and save the day.

Here's a string of tweets with more info.

I can't remember when but I think we've been told somewhere that the inside covers will be pictures of Heralds like they were for Oathbringer.

You're referring to the chapter 7 annotation not chapter 8.

Brandon's posted his annotation for the chapter, telling us that Lalai had to die quickly because the series needs to be done with villains who don't have supernatural abilities or cosmere knowledge - as such figures are too easy as opponents now.

Brandon said on reddit the other week that he plotted the start of RoW like the conclusion of a book, imagining the 1 year time skip as the build up (that he's skipped) and then just giving us the payoff. It's then going to slow down for the bulk of the book. I imagine the rate of deaths will link in with that - lots at the start but not so many through the middle.

This gave us a more sinister angle on the ghostbloods than we've seen since Words of Radiance, and also raised a question of who among Shallan and Adolin's men is actually for the Ghostbloods.

In response to the nightblood speculation etc. We have an answer and it's NO. See attached quote from Michael Whelan's assistant source: https://www.tor.com/2020/08/17/behold-the-cover-to-rhythm-of-war-the-fourth-book-in-brandon-sandersons-stormlight-archive/comment-page-2/#comment-878270

Attached quote from Michael Whelan's assistant both confirms that it is Adolin AND asserts that it's an ordinary sword. Source: https://www.tor.com/2020/08/17/behold-the-cover-to-rhythm-of-war-the-fourth-book-in-brandon-sandersons-stormlight-archive/comment-page-2/#comment-878270

I've got each one at release: Way of Kings, took about a week - had stuff going on so couldn't just sit with it until it was done. Words of Radiance - finished at maybe 5am day after release Oathbringer - finished at I think 3am two days after release.

It's nice (and is already my desktop background). Though not my favourite stormlight cover - that's probably still words of radiance.

With Shardplate do you need a shield? Radiant weapons can be anything they need to be Though I suppose having a backup weapon/shield could be useful sometimes, we're yet to see much in this direction though

There job may be weird - but I imagine they're paid a decent wage to do a relatively task.

If you're right then there's a high chance he's going to be coming back which I really don't want to see. Maybe the theory above is a way of rationalising him not coming back - but still hoping....