RedBlue

Just to be clear, you’re implying that Endowment arranged for Nightblood to come to Roshar with the intention of it being used to kill Rayse? I find that unlikely. Endowment speaks very pointedly about non-intervention in her letters to Wit. Unless she’s straight-up lying, she’s against the idea of assassinating another system’s Shard on principle. Also, killing Rayse didn’t solve the Odium problem, and if Endowment predicted the whole chain of events, she would have been able to predict that too.

I had expected the ‘Son of Tanavast’ thing to be cleared up in this book, but it wasn’t explained, just referenced. I assume that means it will be a thing in arc 2.

Presumably, the long term plan is to find some way to neutralise Retribution permanently, which will involve fighting (and protecting the rest of Roshar from) Retribution’s armies. Sounds like as good a guess as any. If they’re all just stuck in their forms until further notice, Singer society won’t function well, which would be detrimental to Retribution’s goals.

I assume any of the New Heralds can trigger a Return at will. It would be similar to ‘breaking’ under the old system, except on their own terms and without the torture. As for when they would choose to do this, it would likely be when the situation changes such that the spren are no longer in immediate danger of being absorbed by Retribution. Since their minds are in the Spiritual Realm, it’s likely possible for Ishar or one of the others to get updates on what’s happening on Roshar.

I’m going to try to make sense of Ishar’s ravings by turning them into a list. Wish me luck. Ishar previously wrote Kaladin off as unimportant, but has now noticed him. This proves that Ishar’s knowledge and understanding is very limited. He can see that Kaladin is Connected to Dalinar — normal Bondsmith stuff. He still considers Dalinar to be a ‘false champion.’ No change there. He considers Szeth to be his ‘servant.’ First we’ve heard of it. He still considers himself to be a god, the Almighty. No change there. However, he has discarded the Tezim persona due to Dalinar’s interference and the moment of lucidity. Which means the Tezim persona was a real delusion, not an act. Also that brief access to the Spiritual Realm can have a long term effect on the Heralds’ illnesses. He claims to have recovered memories. Unclear whether these are genuine, or more delusions. He has ‘plans’ to deal with ‘threats.’ He is very vague about this. He claims that he takes on the other Heralds’ ‘darkness,’ with the exception of Taln, which allows them to stay functional. He seems to see the others as weak and inferior. He wants Kaladin to help Szeth to murder a bunch of Shin leaders. Unclear what his reasoning is, but clearly he is somewhat invested in Shinovar’s problems. Looking at points 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, the guy is detached from reality and suffers from a sense of inflated grandiosity. Having said that, his delusions are based on things that are really happening, just warped in a way that puts Ishar firmly at the centre of the universe. The claim that Ishar is siphoning the others’ pain has gotten a lot of attention. Clearly, we can’t take what Ishar says at face value, but I think Ishar’s belief is based on something real. I don’t think it can be related to the Braize torture, because Ishar speaks about it as though it is ongoing. This is something he believes he’s been doing since they walked away from the Oathpact. The other Heralds see Ishar as being the most sane one of the bunch, and view him as an authority whose word can be trusted. (Nale hunted down budding Radiants on Ishar’s recommendation.) This matches up to Ishar’s belief that he’s propping up the rest of them. What if Ishar has been using some Oathpact-related ability to mess with the others’ spiritwebs or similar? And all of them think it’s helping? That could make Ishar’s meddling a key component of all of the Heralds’ mental issues (minus Taln).

I don’t think we can assume that Dalinar’s quest is Cultivation’s ‘final string.’ We’re only on day 2. She might smack down a reverse uno card on day 5 or something. Alternatively, maybe the key to defeating/controlling Odium really is in the Spiritual Realm and Dalinar is about to trip over it. I interpreted this as referring to Dalinar’s own reimagining of what kingship can, and should, be. It’s his study of Nohadon’s philosophy, his beliefs about honourable leadership, and his attempts to unite groups of people through shared interests rather than violence. I think the ‘knife’ is a poetic reference to Szeth’s skill set in general, not to Nightblood. Good write up. Amazing how much there is to unpack just on the back cover of these books!

That’s a possibility for sure. The reason I left it off my ‘likely’ list is because it doesn’t feel like the type of resolution Brandon usually writes. He likes big twists and dramatic changes. Especially at the end of book five, which he has described as the end of the first arc, I’m expecting something more decisive than ‘and then both sides ground to an unstable stalemate.’ Maybe I’ll be surprised.

A few thoughts: Lift — I find Lift charming, but sometimes it’s frustrating how little she seems to do for the amount of screen time she has, so I’m very happy to see her making choices that affect the actual plot. Even if it was by mistake. And now she’s doing a terrible (but hilarious) impression of Navani. I don’t think she’ll be able to keep up the ruse for long Gavinor — we know a lot of uncomfortable truths that Gavinor will, presumably, have to come to terms with. His father was a bad king. His other parental/grand-parental figures have deeply questionable pasts. Moash killed Elhokar driven by the same vengeful feelings Gavinor is feeling now. I had thought this was all being saved for teenage or twenty-ish Gavinor in the back half. That was before he was thrown into the Flashback Dimension at age five. This kid is in for a bumpy ride and I am very excited for it. Kaladin’s attempts at therapy — it really messes with Kaladin’s head when he doesn’t have a game plan. He’s clinging desperately to the ‘bonding and listening’ method that has worked before, but he knows he doesn’t have the time, and he can see that this isn’t enough when dealing with someone who is resistant to the very idea of healing. So what’s his next step? My guess is to show some interest in Szeth’s goals and motivations, and make an argument that experimental therapy will totally help him get it done the right way. Best way to persuade people is to appeal to the things people care about. Odium — as Wit’s non-answer to Lift demonstrates, there is no good solution to the Odium problem. The power itself can’t be destroyed, so someone will always have to deal with it in some form. I can think of three likely scenarios by the end of this book: 1) Odium wins, is unbound from Roshar, and escapes into the wider cosmere. 2) Odium loses, remains stuck in the Rosharan system, is restricted from actively doing anything of consequence, but is still alive and well. 3) Odium loses a lot more than anyone expected, and the Shard ends up being splintered or held by someone who radically changes its nature … somehow. All of these scenarios feel like plot hooks, either for the back half or for a future series. Not that I’m complaining!

I don’t think that’s how it works. Every dead-dead character in the cosmere goes to ‘the Beyond,’ and no longer exists as a person in the cosmere. It’s ambiguous whether the Beyond is an actual afterlife or if it’s just nothing. A sort of echo of the person can still be found in the Spiritual Realm, but it’s not them — it’s more like a memory or a recording. Navani and Dalinar getting physically thrown into the Spiritual Realm is very weird, but it’s distinct from death. They still have physical bodies, Connections to the Physical Realm, and they’re still very much alive.

If Kaladin is going to be the ‘hope of spren,’ he probably has to do something more game-changing than stop Ishar. My guess is that Kaladin will discover and fix whatever problem it was that caused the Recreance in the first place. (The big secret that drove the Radiants and their spren to choose to break the bond, not the Mishram stuff.) That allows the modern Knights Radiant to keep going, and allows the spren to participate in the world again.

The vast majority of people IRL, in my experience, have more interest in what they’re eating for dinner than in Big Questions about who we are, where we come from, and what else is out there. How much knowledge does an average person have in world history? In their area’s local history? In natural history? Even with today’s technology, when so many answers are searchable by smartphone, most people’s understanding of the world around them is cursory at best. Either they lack the curiosity, or they’re busy with more immediate problems, or they don’t have enough basic education to contextualise anything they might learn. That’s why I find characters like Kaladin realistic in their non-reactions to aliens.

I’ve been reading with the assumption that Design’s absence is a deliberate omission on Brandon’s part. She isn’t some random extra, and there’s no way IMO that Brandon, his team, and all the beta readers wouldn’t notice an error like forgetting a character exists. Maybe Wit and Design had a falling-out offscreen and she’s giving him the cold shoulder. Or maybe he’s been cheating on his Ideals and the self-improvement thing, and she’s not feeling well. Or maybe they split up to get more stuff done. I’m sure we’ll find out.

—TWoK, chapter 58 —TWoK, chapter 60 I know it’s a small detail, but TWoK makes a point that Nohadon is not Nohadon’s original name. As I recall, Nohadon’s real name has never been revealed. This could turn out to be just flavour text, but given how much feels a little ‘off’ about Nohadon, I’m half-expecting an identity reveal in this book.

Shallan begins to remember the first time her powers pulled her into Shadesmar, before the incident in WoK, but cuts off the thought (presumably because of associated trauma). That ‘first time’ has to have been before she bonded Pattern. If she was weird about Shadesmar prior to having two spren, there must be some other explanation. I think the idea of the double bond giving her Shadesmar access is a misdirect.

It would be funny if Lift’s red chicken is found hanging out in a super obvious place in the Tower, and when asked, the Sibling says “I told you there were no chickens matching your description. That’s not a chicken. It’s a parrot.”

It appears to me that the Rosharan chapter of the Ghostbloods has gone rogue. Iyatil and Mraize pay lip service to Kelsier and report to him while it’s convenient for them to do so, but they don’t truly support him, work for him, use his methods, or believe in his goals. Kelsier’s Ghostbloods and Iyatil’s Ghostbloods are almost different organisations, and it’s just a matter of time until they fracture apart.

I enjoyed this infiltration mini-arc. It felt like a natural evolution of everything Shallan has learned so far, while still retaining her old bad habits of taking huge risks with little preparation and no safety net. And I think it’s good that Shallan got a minor victory here. She isn’t a clueless young girl scrambling for more effective ways to pretend anymore, and hasn’t been for a while. She’s a fourth-level Lightweaver with an extra spren, a network of followers and her special Connection-based drawing ability. She’s a major player on this stage. She’s a credible threat to these Ghostbloods. It’s time for her to take control of the situation. On that note, I like how the Ghostbloods’ facade is crumbling just as Shallan’s facade is becoming the truth. These Ghostbloods are not a big, powerful organisation like they’ve been claiming to be. They’re just a ragtag shady bunch with a vague connection to Thaidakar. They use violence, an air of mystery, and a few props to intimidate people and look important. In that way, they’re a mirror of Shallan — pretending, putting on a show, and blurring the line of where the performance becomes a reality.

After the initial ‘you have effectively declared shady secret war on my shady secret organisation’ drama, I think Kelsier would really like Shallan. He has a strong tendency to play mentor to bright young people, and Shallan ticks all the right boxes.

I’m aware that applications of Navani’s new method are currently very limited, but that’s how progress works. Right now, not much is possible. But hypothetically, with more discoveries and developments, a lot of things could become possible. And we have seen spren affect the Physical realm. Syl can lift stuff and stick things together, Pattern can make things vibrate, the Sibling operates the whole tower, all the spren that make armour. If the process of training a spren functions similarly to forming a Nahel bond — and Rushu’s description makes that seem likely — I expect a trained spren to be able to do things a ‘wild’ spren can’t.

If a flamespren can heat up a room, it can heat up something else. Maybe you could train it to set fire to things, or to overheat equipment. Maybe you could train painspren to incapacitate people, or angerspren or fearspren to manipulate groups. Maybe you could train rotspren to ruin an enemy’s food supply.

A few thoughts: 1) Navani is conceptualising the new type of fabrials as tools like heaters, but a group of ‘domesticated’ flamespren could be a devastating weapon. Very hard to stop or even detect, but capable of targeted, powerful destruction. 2) There seems to be a lot of confusion among the characters about where Honor is now and why the power hasn’t awakened yet. Simple possibility nobody has mentioned: Honor is already awake, and has been keeping to itself because it doesn’t much care for the Rosharan conflict or the people involved. That would be a nasty surprise for Dalinar when he tries to Ascend.

Szeth’s problems were the real standout to me this week. He has: Actual voices in his head associated with the people he murdered — probably not hallucinations, but a real effect of some investiture shenanigan A spren that encourages him to suppress his emotions A belief that stepping away from active combat shows a weakness of character (maybe he thinks self-sacrifice is noble?) Zero brain-to-mouth filter, especially for anything he considers objectively true Difficulty understanding the difference between a fact and an opinion No confidence in his own judgement, except when he doesn’t register that he is making a judgement (this works both for and against him right now) It’s difficult to tell what is causing some of these. There are a bunch of separate invested arts in play which aren’t safe to mess around with, plus Shin cultural problems, plus Skybreaker cultural problems, plus Szeth’s own flaws and trauma. All of those factors could be interacting and exacerbating each other. I suspect the spren has its own serious mental health problems, possibly tying into whatever happened during the Recreance. I don’t think highspren are ‘supposed’ to be as unhelpful as Szeth’s is being. Perhaps they could recover with treatment, similar to the deadeyes? Kaladin is going to have an awful lot to untangle when he sits down for make-it-up-as-I-go therapy. I’m looking forward to this the most.

After the ‘historian and philosopher’ comment, I’m inclined to think the author might be Jasnah. As others have pointed out, she has a mysterious childhood illness which might be partially explained by the Wind messing with her in some way. Alternatively, can we rule out Renarin? I know he’s not officially a historian, but he’s got a lot of scholar type stuff going on that is mostly offscreen, so he might get to a point where he considers himself a historian by the end of the book. And there’s every possibility the Wind could have been messing with Renarin as a kid.

Regarding the death rattle. Has anyone else looked closely at the picture on Kaladin’s chapter headers? It’s a bunch of spears held aloft. The central spear has a flapping banner tied to it — or maybe it could be a cloak. The banner/cloak has three symbols on it. The central one is a long arrow, or maybe a spear. The symbols either side are hidden in the folds of the fabric. If we assume the cloak is the same cloak Dalinar gave to Kaladin way back in WoK, the other two glyphs are stylised as a tower and a crown.

It would be super interesting to have one of the in-world books be written by a spren. They have such a unique perspective, and many of them have seen a lot of stuff go down. I don’t think it can be this one, though. The comments about childhood seem un-spren-like.