Etedbert

Big spoilers for stonewalkers chapter 3

I’m not saying it isn’t unnecessary, just commenting on how closely together Retribution talks about making new Unmade and about using the SR Blackthorn as a general. Definitely felt like an implication, especially knowing Mishram has been referred to as a general of Odium in the past

We did see Syl herself accept Kal’s Herald oath. It’s possible with the death of the Stormfather / possibly the Nightwatcher and the coma of the sibling, along with the Oathpact 2.0 making radiant Spren the largest collection of Honor’s power outside the Heralds left, that individual spren themselves choose whether or not to accept oaths from their radiant, granting them even more agency with the bonds than before

To be fair, Hoid makes a point of reminding Dalinar towards the end of the book, he’s not omniscient. He has no way of knowing that the wind was making vague plans in case something happened. Renarin’s clearest vision of it was not long before he got pulled into the SR, and he didn’t talk to Hoid before that occurred. Nightforms as well as Death Rattles predicted it, but everyone thought those visions were already fulfilled with the appearance of the Everstorm. It was only after Retribution’s rise that we realize what the true Desolation and night of sorrows really meant. I really think Cultivation’s plan after realizing TOdium was still going all in on war, was to have Dalinar ascend as Honor and fight Odium. It would be the fastest way to end the cycle Roshar is stuck in, and let her leave or let her kill whoever remains from that duel, becoming Roshar’s sole god. I really thinkThe rise of Retribution certainly was not on her bucket list. Furthermore, even is she HAD seen it, she famously dislikes Hoid and definitely wouldn’t share her plans with him. The Iriali protector probably didn’t foresee exactly this happening, but I think it probably did foresee that the realmic travel issues would be ending soon. How it knows this, I have no clue. Probably something connected to why the Iriali are all wiggly woggly investiture people. TLDR; Hoid says no one foresaw this because he/his partners didn’t foresee this, and he never talked to the people who did.

There’s another line about Retribution planning to make new Unmade. My guess is the new Blackthorn will be one of them.

Taln losing his honorblade is supposed to be answered in the Cosmete RPG “Stonewalkers” Stormlight adventure module. We now know the end point of the blade, but the adventure will theoretically cover him losing it, and it’s journey to Shinovar

As Wind and Truth is around the corner, my boss at the bookstore I work at has warmed to my pitch of a Wind and Truth launch party! Very in tradition with things like midnight release parties, but we’d just open earlier in the morning (because no one wants to work till midnight on a Thursday, lmao) As my coworker and I brainstorm ideas for it, I figured I’d access the brain trust here and ask, if you had a local bookstore running a Wind and Truth launch party near you, what would you want from it? current ideas are: -large scale 3D print of Urithiru to use as a book display, based on Swinny’s fantastic 3D model here: https://www.printables.com/model/114895-urithiru-from-the-stormlight-archive -some sort of themed food, preferably something sweet (difficult, with all the savory/spicy dishes on Roshar) -A laptop set up for people to take the Radiant Order quiz a long shot idea that probably won’t happen, is me making epoxy resin Spheres to give away, but I’m still brainstorming how to best make them with the gemstone in the center.

I don’t know a good trade market sadly. But if you’re looking for a signed copy, it might be worth emailing some independent bookstores near you. Macmillan (Brandon’s publisher) reserved a certain amount of the signed copies for indie bookstores, and some might not have sold out of their pre-order signed copies yet. Best of luck!

I’ve been trying to find where we were told this, but I remember it being revealed during the RPG kickstarter that radiant plate does not have unique abilities based on the order. I will update here if I manage to find whoever said it. I think it’s more likely that Shallan’s weird experience with her plate is a result of her double bond/reforming her bond with Testament, rather than evidence of unique plate abilities for each order. (As cool as that would be). Shallan manipulating the shape of her plate is something any Radiant should be able to do, it’s an extrapolation of the way plate forms to fit whoever is wearing it. Janah probably did the same thing in RoW to make her flint and steel gloves to ignite soulcast oil on the battlefield. People wearing Shallan’s plate being unable to move is certainly odd, but it seems to be a way of helping her give mental commands to the plate. When she puts it on Red in chapter 16, she tries commanding the spren to form around him, but they’re confused until she grabs his arm to help them visualize where to go. She even struggled forming the plate around herself correctly the first time. I think this is maybe because of her split mind, rather than a unique feature of lightweaver plate. It’s not that her spren can’t form armor correctly, it’s that she has trouble commanding them to do so, possibly from her split, but equally possible is that it’s because of her imbricated spren bonds.

That whole book description reads like some bad Generative AI slough

Except in RoW, we saw him attempt to hijack the bond from Dalinar’s side, and he had to touch him to do so. Why would he need to make contact to form/hijack a bond in one instance, but in the other, forming/hijacking the bond from the SF’s side when talking to Gavilar, he could do so from across a continent? I could see an argument that says “Oh well he’s connected to the SF through the Oathpact (SF also being Tanavast’s cognitive shadow) and went through that connection to the SF, to alter the SF’s connection to Gavilar. This raises a question about Bondsmith’s abilities. Can they follow a chain of connections to then alter a different connection down the line from a distance? That would be bonkers. E.g. Dalinar is from Alethkar, and as such has a connection to it. Amaram (pre-death, lol) is also from Alethkar and has a connection to it. Amaram also has a connection to Kalak through the oaths made as sons of honor. Could Dalinar theoretically follow the connection of Dalinar->Alethkar->Amaram->Kalak, and then forge connections between himself and Kalak?? It certainly doesn’t seem like that level of spiritual jumping is in the purview of bondsmiths. The closest we see, is Dalinar connecting to people who are in a highstorm via his connection to the SF. But he still requires the people to be in a storm to jump that connection gap, and he’s not connecting himself to them, he’s asking the Stormfather to connect to them and pull them into the SR. Stormfaker asserts that Ishar is capable of jumping basically any gap he wants to form connections as he sees fit, and if that’s the case why wouldn’t he steal Dalinar’s bond to the SF from miles away?

My main issue with Stormfaker, is just that all those unusual things were easily explained as it being a rough draft. All the weird language was just because it hadn’t gone through the suite of editing yet. As soon as the finished prologue was released, it killed the theory for me. My other thought was that if Stormfaker was real, it wouldn’t have any real bearing on the plot. Ishar goes “Oh yeah btw I pretended to be the SF with Gavilar but then he died and I stopped doing that” ? What does that add or change for our characters? But if we find out the SF had a budding bond with Gavilar, and that his failure there led him to hide key details from Dalinar? That sets up much more interesting story beats. Stormfaker always just seemed like people reading too much into a rough draft, when taking at it’s stated truth would make a more interesting plot anyways

Nightwatcher is probably named as such, because they were created from the “essence” of the Night spren, by Cultivation. Night became the Nightwatcher, or at the very least, the Nightwatcher is a new conscience created from the same investiture. That’s why they can use the Old Magic to grant boons and curses.

Correct, but a lot of the language around that 5th Oath also discusses truth. Szeth’s spren: And when first telling Szeth about the 5th ideal in OB, Ki says “personification of law and truth” I feel like people focus too heavily on the Law part, and ignore the Truth half of it. To become an embodiment of law is to be able to determine the truth of any matter. In practice, I think we’ve seen this happen when Nale sides with the Singers. He moved beyond the scale of the law of the land, and determined the “truth” of what he viewed as the proper law, that of the singers over that of men. If you cannot determine that truth yourself, you are still held back by the written law, and the flaws within. If Szeth swears the fifth ideal, he has to move beyond his reliance on the decisions of others. It’s a clear path for his arc. He started as Truthless following the oathstone’s owner’s orders, then when he is revealed to not be truthless, he followed Nale and the Skybreakers to maintain structure and cope with his actions. Then he chooses to follow Dalinar. The first time he really chose anything, even if it was a choice to not make more choices. Going to Shinovar wasn’t even solely his choice, he put a caveat with the oath, “…so long as Dalinar Kholin agrees”. He’s slowly beginning to act with more personal agency, and killing Taravangian was the second major choice he made for himself. I think Szeth will need to take some action against the orders of Dalinar, and in choosing for himself what the Truth is, and what is truly lawful, he’ll achieve the 5th ideal. Lightweavers deal with personal truth. Being able to identify and reflect on themselves, and who they are. They engage in self-actualization rather than a discussion of external truth. We know far less about Truthwatchers, but from what we’ve been told, they seem to deal more in objective truth. Of what happened in given situations, and regarding the lies of others. They hold others accountable to the truth, and fight against abuses of power. Skybreakers then deal with legality, and the truth of ethical dilemmas. Lower ideal Skybreakers swear to a structured, pre-existing “truth” whether that be a person, or a legal code. A 5th ideal Skybreaker determines what the “truth” is themselves, beyond existing power structures. They all deal with similar motifs, but have different extrapolations of the same ideas. And given that we know Kaladin and Szeth are the titular “Knights of Wind and Truth” that’s why I think Szeth represents the Truth half of that pairing. I can pull the full quote of Ki talking about the 5th ideal and update it here later tonight^

I’ve taken the Truth half of Wind and Truth as reference to the Skybreaker 5th Oath. Where they embody “Truth”. I take it to mean that Szeth will swear the fifth ideal, and that Kaladin will either bond with, or serve as champion for the Wind in some regard. Making Kaladin and Szeth each a knight of Wind and Truth respectively.