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ccstat

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  1. ccstat

    Chapter 21

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Title: Incomplete Truths
    At first I was going to accuse this of being a reference to Wit or Cultivation with hidden cosmere info, but now I see from the chapter symbol that this is a Shallan chapter, so it’s most likely a confrontation with Mraize. It feels a bit fast for that, though, so maybe it has to do with the way Shallan’s truths about herself, spoken to reach this path on her lightbringer journey, are still missing important pieces as she re-accesses her memories.
    Icons: Taln and Pali
    Taln for endurance or resourcefulness, Pali for learning?
    Epigraph: Nohadon sent the people looking for a good king on to his kingdom, not warning them that he’d abdicated. Which, I mean, why shatter their hopes when you presumably left the kingdom in the best hands you could find? He’s traveling incognito anyway, the decision makes sense. I’m guessing the point will be about not living up to one's own reputation?
     
    Shallan recognizes that Mraize and Iyatil have an information advantage and have used that for manipulation before, including info about the gods, heralds, and other significant beings of of Roshar. This could all be a trap, or at least an assault the ghostbloods fully expect.
    Wait, no, I projected my own concerns onto her. She’s worried about other things, about not knowing how big their plans are because they span beyond the shores of Roshar into systems and commodities she doesn’t know about.
    Wait, it’s only been a year and a half since the advent of the Everstorm? I thought it had been longer than that, combining the time gap before the battle of Thaylen Fields, and then between that and the assault on Urithiru. 
    The description of the defensive emplacements they’ve constructed around and in Narak sounds like some impressive work. It’s not something I’d want to try to hold against a thunderclast or a thousand Fused who can fly and flow through rock, but it’s still a substantial effort that will make a big difference in how the coming fight plays out.
    All of the members of the Unseen Court are doing very well with their lightweaving disguises. Darcira fabricating a scroll of orders on the spot is a particularly deft touch. Now that I write that, though, what was on that scroll? The sergeant she handed it to was male and presumably not able to read. Is it just glyphs and numbers to designate a barracks? Maybe a Kholin seal or one from another highprince? Or is it in writing and there was an unmentioned scribe helping out?
    New member Jayn brings them up to six. The Ghostblood hideout is drawing more and more people in, and all of them are being checked with sand for invested status as they enter, making disguises tricky. 
    I’m also impressed by the way her team just falls into their disguised roles so easily every time. They act like a squad of spearmen, a team of road workers, etc. with knowledge and activity, really committing themselves to the role. She’s trained them well.
    Two more ghostbloods showed up, including an Azish vizier they hadn’t known about before. Presumably the ghostblood network is wide by now, since they’ve been operating on this planet for years and have had a good idea of the timing for when everything would come to a head.
    Oh, Shallan just said basically the same: giant network that she’s been isolated from noticing by Mraize’s compartmentalization. And the doorguard is one of the assassins, which is concerning.
    One more name to add to the Court: Jeneh.
    Darcira, the former ardent, draws logicspren as often as creationspren, making her an outlier among the Court. Does that mean that her armor will eventually incorporate both types? I hadn’t considered that possibility, that the type of armor spren isn’t strictly set for each order and rather a manifestation of the character traits each Radiant embodies. There is a norm, but those can be defied in part or in whole. I suppose it’s not too much of a surprise that multiple types of spren could work together to become armor just as well as a single type, since all of them do it separately. I had just made assumptions to the contrary.
    Red’s cryptic, named Array, likes alliteration rather than the lies that Pattern is so fond of. Is that unusual for so-called “lie spren” or is Pattern just one interest among many?
    Ah, the sand reveals not just lightweavings, but nahel spren who get close. 
    Pattern hums, presumably detecting a lie, but there’s no indication why. Does it have to do with her thoughts about the changing weather? Their disguise as crem scrapers? Something the Ghostbloods are doing?

    And of course we are switching POVs to Sigzil. Too much going on to just let us progress a single plot line. 
    Oh, I forgot that Sig was Azish, so he would revere the Prime Aqasix of the empire. I want to see him interact with Gawx now.
    His spren Vienta is very affirming. “You are a hero. Live that truth.”
    Ka, a Windrunner scribe, uses her shardblade as a pen to write with. I like it.
    Kmakl suspects something strange about the numbers of ordinary singers available to throw into this war. When your people can change to warform every time a storm passes, though, it wouldn’t be hard to source those soldiers from your population, and if slaves were as widespread across all nations as they were in Alethkar, then it would be hard to overestimate the total singer population.
    And the Mink disappeared. Is he sneaking into Dalinar’s meeting, or somewhere else? His nose for trouble is highly attuned.

    A Jasnah POV again! Yay! Ivory is riding around on her earring, which is sneaky/cute.
    The Tower made a forest room with fake sun and lots of plants. Dalinar hates it. “Clean up this mess!” But the Sibling intends it as a place for the Nightwatcher to feel at home if she visits–something also not likely to make Dalinar appreciate the room any more.
    Jasnah’s take on Dalinar’s disapproval feels very personal. More Kholin drama perpetuated across years of messy relationships. I like all of these people now, but they were a pretty awful disaster of a family for a very long time.
    That’s loaded with implications. Have we seen any indication of Night around? Are they the entity infesting Shinovar, rather than the suspected Unmade? Probably not, but that just means they’ll be an ominous background feature until the next sequence of five books. 
    Okay, loredump is appreciated but still confusing. Stones sounds to me like the foundational spirit of Roshar, and probably remains an extant entity along with Night and Wind. Stones pretty clearly predates Honor and Cultivation’s arrival to Roshar, and I wonder about the relationship to the previous working title of this book “Stones Unhallowed.” That has obvious connections to the Stone Shamans as well. Oof. Lots to ponder here.
    Also, pre-Radiant surgebinding was apparently unfiltered by the volition and sapient nature of spren, borrowing as the do from the collective (un)conscious of people, which likely contributed to the planet-destroying danger of that approach. It can’t be the whole thing, though, since Ishar apparently imposed rules on the nahel bond after humans and spren started exploring the possibilities of those bonds.
    I could have kept reading to answer some of my speculation, but this gives me more questions than before. Night, Wind, and Stones are a triumvirate of pre-shattering Roshar, mirror to the Nightwatcher, Stormfather, Sibling dynamic that is at the forefront today. Those three presumably still exist, though Night “left,” whatever that means. Departed to another shardworld? Faded to the Spiritual Realm or the Beyond?
    It’s suspicious to me that the Nightwatcher was made of the same essence as Night, and we also have an unmade who creates Midnight Essence and is known as the Midnight Mother. Night may be gone, but she left more than one legacy made by more than one set of divine hands.
    Dalinar surprises a hiding Lift, but just ignores it, unbothered by her presence. It’s unclear if he’s also spotted the Mink next to her, the way Jasnah just did, but either way he’s carrying on with the meeting. At least until he’s interrupted by Wit arriving with snacks.
    This silent exchange between Jasnah and Dalinar is a good moment, with her tracking his character growth from indifference to coming to think about others in an overbearing way, to finally, for the first time in her experience, asking if Jasnah wants help with something. 
    Wit isn’t a fan of the idea for Dalinar to seek out Honor’s core, but so far the only objection he’s actually voiced is that Dalinar would regret becoming its vessel, for the extraordinary burden it would become.
    Huh. Probably because we’ve seen Sazed and Taravangian already ascend, I was thinking about this purely in practical terms, along the lines of tactics and strategy and feasibility. Jasnah is in a much more fraught position, as close to it as she is. An avowed atheist, who has seen her beliefs confirmed by messages left by the god who died and left them unprotected, now contemplating a day in the immediate future when her close family member would demonstrably become that lost deity. Oof!
    After a shard dies, its power has different possible fates.
    The second would be Threnody, yes? Not sure about the first. It doesn’t sound like Sel, since the power is obvious.
    Wit confirms again that Cultivation’s vessel is a dragon, not that anyone in the room can understand. And he reveals Lift, who Dalinar apparently hadn’t noticed yet. 
    The Mink is teaching Lift contortionism and escapology. This can only be a good thing.
    Oh, and the Mink wants to lead a strike force to reclaim Herdaz in the event of Dalinar’s loss. I see the appeal, but I’m not sure what good it will do you to own a small country surrounded by enemies on a planet controlled by an angry and hostile god.
    And he’s calling in the oath Dalinar made, which is a potent tool to use here on a Bondsmith of Honor. How to deliver the troops? Fourth Bridge won’t work, they don’t have enough Windrunners without weakening the other fronts catastrophically. Maybe… has Jasnah learned actual elsecalling yet? They’re supposed to be able to do what oathgates do as part of their radiant abilities, right? It doesn’t seem like she’s mastered that yet, and there’s no indication of if she could take a group with her even if she did, but… that’s my suspicion about what will happen.
    Nope. He’s sending the Windrunners. And he’s expecting them to make the round-trip in time to help with the battles after all.
    Jasnah and Dalinar clashing over what’s right, with Jasnah taking the utilitarian position and Dalinar arguing for a more personal morality, is very tense. Short, but highly charged.
    Thankfully, Lift is here to bring things back to important topics like snacks. The part that grabs my attention is that the fruits still move as you eat them. I thought that they’d become sessile once plucked, but no. In Roshar even your salad fights back.
    Lift has lots of requests for Dalinar to get right once he does become a god, and also wonders if maybe the Almighty is failing to fix the world’s problems because he’s distracted by all the prayers. 
    And predictably the Stormfather is unhappy with the discussion about appropriating Honor’s power. Not that I’m sure why he’s more upset now than when Dalinar brought it up the first time.
  2. ccstat

    Chapter 20

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Title: Three Vital Points of Defense
    Gotta be Azimir, Thaylenah, and… I dunno. Urithiru is already well defended, Herdaz and Alethkar are part of the deal, Emul and Jah Keved have already capitulated, and the singularity in the peaks wouldn’t be a defense but an offensive strike to retake. Aimia isn’t a population center and its importance is still a secret from everyone in this room. That leaves Iri, Tu Bayla, and the Reshi Isles, none of which are important to the coalition. Oh, wait, the third offensive was headed for the Shattered Plains, so they’ll be defending Narak.
    Icons: Jester and Jez
    Stormfather’s bondsmith making plans with Wit, also Leading. More excitingly, this is apparently a Navani chapter. Yay!
    Epigraph: Nohadon told two lies…which we’ll learn about next chapter. Don’t worry, this is very suspenseful and not at all frustrating to be given seven words at a time. 
    Navani can hear Stormfather talking to the Sibling. Is that because Stormfather is letting her hear, or because she’s bonded so closely with the Sibling that she’s privy to those conversations in the same way as the songs the lesser spren sing to them? I’m suspecting the latter, and that the Stormfather just hasn’t bothered talking to the Sibling in the past week.
    Both of them can immediately confirm the change in vessel from the same rhythms that Wit apparently listened to for his deduction. 
    Stormfather responds with bloodthirst and wishing he’d been the one to strike Rayse down, to which the Sibling responds by wishing Stormfather were his old happy self. I’m left wondering when that was. Before Gavilar? Before Tanavast’s death? Before the Recreance? Also, that’s something I’d be interested in them saying to Stormfather’s face, after his arguments about not being changeable like an ephemeral human.
    Fen wants to know why we care. It’s still an enemy leading armies, which is a valid take. Wit insists it’s different, because the new vessel will be willing to take risks Rayse wouldn’t, which affects their strategy.
    Wait, don’t tease us with that! What did Rayse get up to? Was he the binder or the bindee? What happened in consequence?
    Can we change capitals?
    Clever idea, glad I thought of it! Sadly no. That would be a violation of the agreement somehow.
    Wit outright says Frost and his sister are dragons, though we know from his dog and dragon story in the last book that it’s not a word that translates on Roshar so I guess it doesn’t matter. Nobody is going to know enough to ask follow up questions even if they would have had the inclination to do so.
    Oh, neat. The Sibling is impressed with the super map Dalinar and lightweavers can make together. It’s something the ancient Radiants never managed. I’m inclined to believe Navani’s explanation, that it’s an advance made possible by the lack of assumptions from the previous body of knowledge, but I’m concerned that it’s a reflection of Dalinar’s unchained bondsmithing and that they’ve accessed some manner of surgebinding that would have made it to the forbidden list like Shallan’s Substantiation. Is this part of the “oops, try not to destroy the planet again” category of powers, or at least an indication that those are accessible now?
    Adolin summoned Maya and is telling her what he sees on the map. Will she have good advice? Even if not, I’m proud of him going to such lengths to include her even in the middle of a meeting like this with eyes on him.
    They go through each of the locations detailing the situation, and it’s dire all over. The important piece is that the oathgate spren in Azimir will soon stop helping the human coalition, so any part of their army they send there won’t be able to reposition once that attack is repulsed, even if the timing would otherwise work out. Their three fronts can’t all reinforce each other. So the biggest manpower will have to be committed to Thaylenah, and the biggest Radiant force to Narak, while only a skeleton crew fend off the invasion fleet headed for Azimir.
    Sounds like there’s not much strength at Narak, which probably means we’ll have to contact Leshwi and Venli for help from the listeners. But does anyone here even know about them enough to think to ask?
    I was guessing that Adolin would choose to go to Azimir, and looks like I was right. He’s planning to take the Cobalt Guard with him, along with some elite volunteers. Maya will have a chance to shine.
    As for the other fronts, Jasnah just volunteered for Thaylenah. She was just talking about how important the Shattered Plains were to her and her people, so this is slightly unexpected. She does have some strong camaraderie with Fen as another female monarch, though, on top of the other good reasons she gives about experience and suitability.
    This is definitely hard for Navani to watch her daughter and step-sons volunteer for last stand defenses in different parts of the continent while she is stuck here to keep Urithiru functioning.
    Sigzil getting stuck with high command over the Shattered Plains is not what he was hoping for as his first act in charge of the Windrunners. Sorry Sig, time to shine.
    All this makes sense, but where will the Mink be? And even if Dalinar is unavailable to commit himself, he’ll presumably have some ability to help, perhaps by opening singularities over one battlefield or another to support the Radiants. Oh, right, he might be in the Spiritual Realm searching for Honor’s core. Best not to say that out loud, or commit to being anywhere for the battles.
    Navani is very sympathetic here, hoping for Dalinar and Adolin to make at least an overture of peace, but at the same time if she’s urging Dalinar to “just hug him!”in her mind, why not take that step herself? She’s the step-mom now, she can at least make Adolin feel encouraged and trusted. 
    The Kholin drama is storming about making messes. “You didn’t raise me, you killed the woman who did!” is a particularly biting comeback. Oof.
    Dalinar can bondsmith a connection between Adolin and Azir so they can speak to each other? When did he learn how to do that, and how can he do it from a distance? I’d have expected him to need a Azish person as anchor if they were performing it in Urithiru.
    And Dalinar plans to talk about Cultivation with Navani, Jasnah, Wit, and maybe Fen. I’m not sure what Fen contributes, but I’m not against her involvement. I still worry about whether the Ghostbloods were intentionally allowed to overhear that conversation.
     
  3. ccstat

    Chapter 19

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Title: Ruled by Voices
    Yup, this is a Szeth chapter. 
    Icons: Chana
    Destruction! Or maybe bravery? Or subversion of obedience, as Szeth is going against everything he learned from the Stone Shamans?
    Epigraph: Oh, the travelers aren’t looking for something so esoteric as all that. They’re looking for Nohadon’s well-governed lands where the king actually cares about his people. That kind of mythical.
    Szeth is still wearing white, and it’s something he chose for himself. Dalinar gave him the choice. Other skybreakers apparently always wear the local uniform for the police-equivalent, which strikes me as terribly presumptuous but I guess superpowered law-upholders get to claim membership in every force regardless. 
    Szeth’s “pretending that it’s right” rather than just a tradition or routine, in order to prevent himself from needing opinions. That sounds terribly dangerous as a thought process, but also in line with someone on the path to becoming the sole arbiter of law.
    They get to Shinovar by crossing the Misted Mountains, an apparent homage to Tolkein, and also a path where they don’t expect to be shot out of the sky by archers, something that the Shin have apparently taken to doing at the northern border.
    Oddly, the noise of the wind drowned out the voices in his mind while he was flying at high speed. I wouldn’t have thought volume would be that sort of an issue. I don’t think it was the act of flying that was a distraction either, since he would have noticed that by now.
    When did Szeth talk to Nale and get permission to use Division? Was that just at Thaylen Fields or have they had conversations since then? Szeth implies this happened at the time of his third ideal, which I’m pretty sure was Thaylen Fields. Weirdly hierarchical that the head of their order dictates when they can use their powers, especially since Szeth’s bonded spren has different opinions on when it will be appropriate and has denied Division to him so far. 
    “Stonewalker plants” are the ones from eastern Roshar (i.e. the rest of the continent) that move to shelter from storms. Szeth is really happy to see normal sessile plants.
    For someone feeling nostalgic, describing gentle rain as being “like a corpse that had already bled out” says very disturbing things about your relationship with your homeland, Szeth. You might want to ask some of those voices for a better way of thinking about the beauties of nature.
    Hm, not only have the storms lost their fury by the time they reach Shinovar, all of the crem minerals have dropped out of the rain so you no longer get that kind of buildup.
    Szeth is so happy to see moss and grass he attracts two whole gloryspren, and we’re a long way from the attraction of the Sibling. This is the real thing.
    And Kal’s got confusionspren: streaks of violet. He obviously thinks the plants are sick and Szeth is having a breakdown for sad reasons. 
    Szeth still doesn’t know his spren’s name. I suppose if the spren have been part of Nale’s skybreaker order for a thousand years they’d have bonded with a bunch of humans across multiple lifetimes, and it would become more like a job than an intimate partnership. Or maybe it’s to do with general highspren culture, about which we know little beyond their antipathy for honorspren.
    And the highspren’s only contribution is “get over your stupid human emotions.” Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to like the skybreakers, or a spren who would look at Szeth and say “that’s the paragon of morality I want to support,” but this is not moving them up in my esteem. There’s a whole book left for humanizing moments and sympathy, but this is not a promising start.
    Huh. Szeth thinks of his spren as a master, akin to Dalinar or previous holders of his oathstone. I’d expected to eventually find abusive relationships between humans and their bonded spren, but I thought they’d go the other direction.
    The voices being triggered by shadows makes me think there’s something unmade going on here, but surely the highspren would have detected that in the past few years.
    Szeth equates an unwillingness to hurt or kill with cowardice, and directly asks Kal if that’s what he’s become. A revealing bit of his worldview, and also a comprehensive lack of tact. Except that apparently he doesn’t comprehend why that would be an annoying thing to say. He’s got a very alien way of looking at everything, even after a year of attempted rehabilitation by Dalinar.
    Kaladin’s opinions of the plants are kinda funny. “These must be hiding among all the normal plants. Oh wait, they can’t hide. What will happen when all the real plants retract and they’re left alone before the ravaging goat.” These immobile things can’t possibly be real plants, after all.
     
  4. ccstat

    Chapter 18

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
     
    Title: An exception to the rules
    Going by the Jester icons, I suspect Wit is going to say something about the contract loopholes. That interpretation is based on Adolin’s POV symbol, suggesting that anything Ghostblood related will wait another chapter to show up.
    Icons: Jester
    We know Wit is present in the meeting, and he’s consulting with offworlders, so it tracks.
    Epigraph: Nohadon’s encountered people on the way to Urithiru? Maybe? I’m don’t really think Urithiru was considered mythical back in the day. Surely they’re not trying to return to Ashyn or anything that idiotic. 
    Navani is surrounded by a crowd of emotion spren that she has to convince to leave so the very serious meeting can get started.
    Adolin wondering if he should talk to his dad.
    That’s right, Adolin, you’ve learned well from the tradition of Kholin family drama.
    I don’t recall the Reshi king’s name. I at first thought this was Isom in disguise, but that would be terribly unsubtle when the actual Dustbringer Reshi chieftain is around. I’m betting on it being the real guy. Though, maybe Isom is impersonating the son with his knowledge? Not super likely, I’ll admit, but the late addition is drawing my curiosity.
    Everyone panicking about the invasions leads to blaming Dalinar for the way the agreement drives war in these last ten days. And Adolin’s only thought is “you deserve this anger for killing Mom.”
    Except we know that Dalinar has maxed out on charisma, so he’ll turn this around before long. I’m now guessing that’s the title reference. Dalinar is and has always been an exception to the rules.
    Oh, it’s not Dalinar that turns it around. Yanagawn expresses gratitude and perspective, thereby moving the room to favorability.
    --Notable because Adolin can’t parse the offworld swear by Wit. We’ve had "Holy Halls: and references to hell, but a Rosharan mindset doesn’t grok this one. Onto the list it goes! Also, seems like Wit figured something out.
    I’m quite curious what the bone thing Wit has is, but we aren’t likely to get any details soon. Wit’s taking his time to explain what’s actually going on, and in the meantime we find out that Dalinar forgot a chair–and as such is an exception to the rules, even his own. Which is the point where Adolin thinks he’s maybe letting his grudge influence his mood and thoughts a bit too much.
    I was right, by lucky chance. Wit’s consultant was in fact Frost….or not. He declined to help, so Frost’s sister stepped in. 
    Rayse would have been bound by his promise not to use loopholes, but the current Odium is not, so he must be a different vessel. Wit figured out that someone ascended to replace Rayse, but not who it was other than “a genius” who’s planning to conquer all of Roshar in the next ten days.
    EDIT: Forgot to actually note down how interesting it is that listening to the Rhythms of Roshar was enough to confirm that fact for Wit. I don't know which ones would have changed with the transfer of the shard to a new vessel, or how the change would manifest, but that's a question I'd really like Jasnah or maybe Navani to get Wit to answer.
     
    The Ghostbloods were spying on Dalinar’s meeting with Cultivation. Could they hear what was said? Did she choose that time and place in order to let them overhear? Because if anyone is going to exploit the availability of Honor’s core, the Ghostbloods are on that list of willing and capable.
    Shob is a hypochondriac, which seems tame compared to some of the other character flaws among Radiants and the Court specifically, but I’m sure there’s more to it.
    Shallan is convinced she has to kill Mraize and that she’ll feel bad about it. I’m not convinced she’ll be able to succeed at the attempt. 
    The new masked Ghostbloods are confirmed to be Scadrians, and are apparently assassins. Ominous. 
    Changing the mugshots to look like pinups is an effective bit of disguise. I thought they were going to get caught for a second.
    The Ghostbloods are based in Narak. That’s interesting. How often do the Oathgates transport people? It’s got to be frequent if Darcira could tail her ghostblood target through it without suspicion. Obviously lots of demand for traffic between places, but I had in mind that they were more regulated than that.
    Shallan helping out Shob is good for the family feeling she’s trying to build into the Court. Perhaps just as important, that care is noticed the other direction. As Shob says, “you pay better attention now.”
     
  5. ccstat

    Chapter 17

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
     
    Title: A Tough Kind of Love
    Gaz just described his treatment of the bridgmen as “tough love” and anything that could be used that way for the treatment Mraize showed to Shallan is either euphemism or manipulation. Not a good sign of what’s to come in this chapter.
    Icons: Ash
    Lots of lightweavers doing lightweaver things. Unseen Court is going to battle (and probably gonna get trounced and tricked)
    Epigraph: Nohadon inspired followers in his lifetime, and was intimidated by that fact. I was going to say something about how he didn’t publish Way of Kings until later in his life, so the words must have been disseminated quickly and widely for this to occur, but if this is something he wrote about in that book, then my logic is stupid and breaks down. Obviously people would be influenced by a figure like Nohadon long before he compiled his wisdom into a published work. 
    Adolin catches the elevator with Dalinar’s forgotten bodyguard. There’s some unsubtle parallel there for mutual understanding.
    Wait, Colot is a former Windrunner squire? I hadn’t considered that people would quit that path and return to their former lives. I wonder how often that happens.
    Gawx takes the initiative to hold the elevator doors for Adolin and Colot. It’s a small thing, but he’s asserting himself and I like to see that. This budding friendship with Adolin is good to see, even/especially since it’s somewhat improper for the emperor to even speak to people of unequal station. 
    This exchange is illuminating about both of them:
    “Do you ever worry you won’t be strong enough?”
    “Well, I already failed once when it was my job to save Kholinar, so yes. All the time.”
    Gawx really is coming into his own here, filling the role of emperor far better than could be expected of someone with his training.
    And of course Adolin’s thought upon witnessing Yanagawn’s self-doubt is “put a sword in his hand and get him to hit stuff.” That is such a high-born Alethi perspective, and also genuine to Adolin’s life experience. Which isn’t to say it mightn’t work for Gawx, but still.

    It’s notable to remember that Shallan is the lightweaver, while Radiant has to rely on her for disguises etc. That emphasizes that there are material drawbacks to the way the partition between them is organized. 
    I don’t remember which one Isom is. I feel bad that the Unseen Court have taken such a minor place in my memory despite being so invested in Shallan’s personal journey. I should remember and care about her new family, too.
    Shallan is pretty good at disguising the sound of her voice at this point, something that she struggled with for quite a while. 
    Shob? I definitely haven’t seen that name before. Maybe we simply haven’t been introduced to most of the Court yet.
    I had also forgotten that Jushu had the same gambling problem that Gaz does. Good personal connection there, and hopefully Shallan will be able to help them both.
    Disgustspren are orange corkscrews, and another new appearance among the spren that are showing up in the revived tower.
    The power of love: threatening to torture anyone who enables your friend’s gambling addiction. I was wrong. The title’s Tough Love was actually a good thing. Shallan’s inadequate attempt at a pun, on the other hand, is awful.
    Oh, I like that Gaz got her in this wordplay exchange. Good going Gaz, she deserved it!
     
  6. ccstat

    Shallan's Sketchbook - Part IV

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 

    Sketchbook page! Shallan’s own shardplate! Love the satchel at her side for the book and reeds, and whatever else she plans to keep in there. (Not sandwiches, probably, since she’s not Lift.) I do like how ornate it is, especially with that one armpit section that looks like a leaf. It is distinctly feminine in proportions without being overly feminized. 
    The plan to add a cape for Adolin’s benefit is cute, and I’m glad she appreciates his sense of style. 
    Two blades present in the drawing–I’m glad she took the time to draw those as well as the armor. Which one is Pattern and which is Testament? I’m presuming that Pattern is the narrower, plainer one on the left, with Testament having the swooping curlicues in the guard, but there’s no real reason to think that other than vague recollections of earlier books and trying to guess which ones apply to which blade. It’s made more difficult because all living blades can shapeshift freely, so there’s no guarantee that any particular scene involves the “default” form of a blade.
    About the armor spren–Shallan is noticing that each spren must become more than one segment of armor, based on the numbers, but that each section requires multiple spren. It’s not a one-to-one correlation in either direction, but rather a sort of amalgamation. I don’t care too much about those rules, so I’ll wait to see what she or the other characters come up with in their discovery rather than speculating overmuch.
     
  7. ccstat

    Chapter 16

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
     
    Title: Vague Promises and Hints
    Yes, that’s about what we’ve come to expect from the Shard vessels at this point. I’m not really anticipating anything else from Cultivation despite her supposed interest in opposing Taravangian now.
    Icons: Jester and Vedel
    Same as chapter 14, but with their positions swapped. Jester was on the outside before, now it’s to the center. Not that I’ve got any clue about what that means. At least the sides are still mirrored. We had some weird unmirrored chapters near the end of RoW that didn’t follow the few rules these seme to have.
    As for the icons and their relation to the chapter, I suspect it’s mostly Cultivation’s presence for Vadel, and Wit for the Jester assuming he’ll show up to talk about his missing memories. Other options are hard to rule out, though. Ghostbloods are Shallan’s next target, so they could easily be prominent soon. 
    WAIT! 
    I just noticed the cracks in the archway. The ones branching through the Eye of the Almighty caught my attention first, but a closer look shows them spreading through the herald icon segments and the chapter title header. Those weren’t present before, right? 
    Yeah, double checking the prior chapters shows that Day One and its following interludes had pristine archways overtop of every chapter, while Day Two so far has identical cracks. Presumably these will worsen until the whole edifice crumbles down by Day Ten. That’s not ominous at all.
    Good grief, I shouldn’t be so freaked out by this little visual foreshadowing, but something about it is really communicating “this is going to get bad.” I wonder how many readers notice this. I probably wouldn’t have until it got more noticeable a section or two from now, if I weren’t checking the icons every time.
    Epigraph: Slow trickle of information. It will be a few chapters before there’s much to comment on.

    Shallan feeling safe and accepted is wonderful. She’s needed that safe harbor for a long time now. Joyspren swirling lazily is a good way to capture that emotion. Also, they apparently look like blue leaves. I’m starting to think that the only emotion spren I really remember the descriptions for are anticipationspren, painspren, and shockspren, since this is yet another one that I didn’t have a visual for in my brain.
    The creationspren all copying different soaps, shampoos, and stuff is silly and cute. They aren’t doing  a very good job of disguising themselves if they keep bouncing up and down while chanting her name. 
    She’s talking to them, but I don’t think they’re really mentally up for conversation. It feels almost like she’s got a bunch of pokemon following her around that can only say one thing.
    So we’ve got Kaladin’s sparkly aura, and Shallan’s cheer section. Why don’t Jasnah’s armor spren embarrass her like that? What kind of spren do elsecallers attract for that, anyway? Current money is on logicspren, who probably don’t go in for frivolous pageantry like the windspren and creationspren apparently do.
    Shallan checks, but Testament doesn’t manifest on this side (yet).
    Gaz and Red disguising themselves as planters took me by surprise. I doubt lightweavings like that will fool the investiture sensors that the ghostbloods are bound to be using, be it copper based or something else, but that kind of guard will still act as a deterrent even if it doesn’t go undetected.
    I vaguely remember the name Stargyle, and there’s a new Lightweaver: Darcira. More importantly, they’re calling themselves the Unseen Court. That might have come up before, but I like having a pretentious name for their spy ring - slash - secret service.
    This may or may not be a general lightweaver approach, but Shallan at least is keeping her “family” of lightweavers small. She’s not trying to lead the whole order.
    Wit sent sketches of 12 ghostblood members, none of whom are Felt. Makes me think he’s missed more than a few. More masked members, indicating they are probably Scadrians, though hoods and hidden faces could really be anybody. Wit suggests they are particularly “dangerous” reinforcements called specifically for the coming crisis. Also notably Shallan talks about them being short, which is a reminder that Rosharan’s are universally tall compared to the rest of the cosmere.
    Shallan’s plan being predicated on the idea that she has information the ghostbloods don’t makes me concerned for how vulnerable they are to the tables being turned. We know Ala already conveyed the info to both Iyatil and Kelsier.
    I’m glad that one of the things Shallan objects to about Mraize is his caging of Lift. It’s not just about the manipulation and trust. She’s also choosing her friends and her morals.
    Everyone wants to borrow her armor, except Darcira who just wants to test what is possible with their powers, and Shallan is stuck following good advice. And apparently Darcira was a former ardent. Shallan’s Unseen Court is drawing from quite a range of backgrounds.
    Gaz is still annoyed at Kal being an icon of goodness. What a jerk to show off like that just to spite Gaz. Oh, and apparently Gaz is unintentionally honest when drunk. “Might say things he ain’t ready to say yet.” Good indication that all of them have the same sorts of truths that they have trouble facing about themselves. Shallan’s internal mess is pretty extreme, but all lightweavers will come with some sort of unresolved dissonance or they wouldn’t have attracted their cryptics.
    Not really a surprise that Wit joined that order, is it?
    Veil pipes up again, and Shallan has a useful realization.
    It’s a great sentiment. It also suggests I was right in my idea before that she’ll be healing from her supernaturally fractured psyche toward a more traditional form of DID. It’s a message about that state of plurality being a stable and good thing to work toward, and an intentional representation of neurodivergence in fiction that will hopefully be a good thing and counteract some of the more fantastical and negative split-personality stereotypes that populate a lot of fiction. I am not as educated about that topic as I’d like to be, but I’ve had some exposure to it and can see the value here.
    Looks like the creationspren are too inexperienced to act as actual armor away from Shallan’s body. She can encase Red with a touch, but not remotely and not with movable joints.

    As before, there was the faintest hint of the sound of crumbling stone to [Cultivation’s] voice.
    It’s probably just coincidence, since I noticed it two chapters after it had already started, but the crumbling stone archway at the top of the chapter makes this comment more concerning, with Cultivation playing a part in the upcoming destruction. She’s not opposed to composting the current world order if it will fertilize future growth, which is fine in abstract as long as you aren’t the current occupants of the world about to be mulched.
    “Why not explain?” A valid question, Dalinar, and all you’ll get is *checks title* Vague Promises and Hints.
    Okay, I’m getting a suspicion here. Cultivation’s first vague hint is asking about his purpose as a Bondsmith. Answer: “To unite them,” which is explicitly called out as having many meanings. She next reminds him of the time he touched all three realms, and tells him to take a journey of understanding through Roshar’s history because Honor is shattered into pieces… pieces in need of uniting. 
    So she is hoping that Dalinar will repair the Shard so it’s ready to accept a vessel. She hasn’t spelled it out yet, and I’m not sure if she will, but I’m suddenly wondering whether that is now also Taravangian’s goal…just with a different step 2 where he intends to hijack the process and/or the result for his own ends.
    Wait, she says that Honor wasn’t actually splintered. And she outright says that it’s waiting for a new vessel to host it. In this case I’m not sure whether having the goal explained makes it more or less likely to come to fruition. She does claim not to know whether Dalinar can succeed in becoming the vessel, or whether doing so would actually help successfully against Odium. The timing of this feels suspicious, and we know she's been manipulating lots of things all along, so I feel the need to question her motives even if the answers she gave feel like the best approach for Dalinar to take.
    She’s telling him to go to the Spiritual Realm, which is a shame because I’m not really eager to have him crash Shallan’s party. That’s not a pair that have worked together much, so in the nature of these stories shuffling the cast around for new interactions it makes sense to try this combination. I’ll hold out hope for the pairing to surprise me in a good way.
    Apparently Cultivation hides well enough that none of the spren can sense her either, and Stormfather had no idea about the visit. Stormfather is not excited about Dalinar traveling to the spiritual realm or trying to connect with Honor’s power. Specifically he doesn’t want to share more answers with Dalinar, presumably because of past experiences with Gavilar. 
     
  8. ccstat

    Chapter 15

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here.
     
    Title: Passionspren
    That’s not a type of spren I would have thought existed until now. As used on Roshar, Passions is primarily a broad term to encompass all strong emotions and desires, and therefore there should be no “passion spren” since we already have dedicated spren for anger, fear, awe, glory, joy, et cetera. Theoretically there could be passionspren in the sense of romantic ardor, assuming the words are used that way in their languages, but I find it much more likely that this is a reference to Odium’s association with emotions and the Passions. In that case, passionspren would be the umbrella term to replace “voidspren” as we’ve used it so far. 
    Icon: Vedel
    I still can’t figure out why Vedel was in the header for the previous chapter, so I can’t make much sense of her placement here, either. There were no edgedancers, no numerology related to four, and no prominent instances of listening, of loving, or of healing. The Flowing Ones and the Magnified Ones who share surges with the edgedancers didn’t appear. The associated essence is light, so maybe Navani’s ruminations on Towerlight qualified? I think I’m missing something, and it’s the same something that will make Vedel the appropriate herald to head this chapter.
    Epigraph: This is going to be one of those epigraph sets where I get frustrated by the slow pace of revealing things line by line. 
    Adolin discovers the joy of a warm shower, which is the pinnacle of comforts in the revived tower. Shallan is impressed as well. Recall, of course, that the tower has been dead for a thousand years. The lost secrets of the ancients being rediscovered is truly a wondrous thing. Showers, people! Spread the word!
    D’aww, these two. That’s so sweet and genuine. (But also, I can totally see where that seon Ala was coming from if she had to be around this kind of love all the time and didn’t ship it.)
    Of course Adolin already has a bevy of shower products available and is ready for a spa day. I hope it’s not offensive that he’s using Thaylen eyebrow shampoo on his hair, but honestly I would too. Those eyebrows are amazing, and whatever keeps them stylish has got to be good for your long locks as well. I really want to get all the details on this hair care regimen.
    This scene is full of joyspren, mentioned over and over. Maybe passionspren of the title is an umbrella term for various emotions after all, and each scene will feature a different one? Not my top prediction at the moment, but it would make sense.
    I love how clearly Shallan and Adolin understand one another’s subtext and root motivations. They really are good for each other. 
    Adolin still feels like he’s falling so short of his father’s expectations, but that’s only the surface. He’s also still horrified by the reveal that Dalinar killed Evi, and wants to nurture that anger rather than forgive. 
    Oh, I was wrong. Passionspren are in fact associated with romantic ardor. They look like crystalline snowflakes, and are plenty at home in a steamy shower.
    Shallan is pretty confident about being able to track down the ghostbloods. She’s got to try, of course, but I would be much less certain that she’ll even get a chance at a preemptive strike on Mraize.
    Adolin’s got the right priorities here. Notices what’s important.
    They kissed, “water falling around them like applause.” I mean, they’re royalty so some degree of narcissism comes with living in the spotlight, but it seems a bit much to have your own shower applaud at your attractive bodies and passionate kisses.
     

    Another new name–Colot, 2IC of the Cobalt Guard.
    Dalinar’s got this angry stomp thing down, the “get out of my way” energy of a man almost ready to be the Blackthorn.
    Third offensive confirmed, this one heading for the Shattered Plains. Estimate of 1000 Fused, accompanied by a thunderclast or two. (Apparently there are only two total, right now? I assumed there’d be more showing up since Thaylen Fields.)
    Gavinor? What’s he doing out and about? It could be normal toddler wakefulness, or it could be foul play in the middle of the enemy offensive. 
    The garden room, as in the place with growing plants and lots of lifespren and cultivationspren? Is Baby Gav a proto edgedancer? Seems ridiculously young to start that process, but that’s what this feels like is being hinted.
    And who is this? Wait, Cultivation just manifested herself to speak to Dalinar? That’s probably a reason the monarchs will accept for being late to the meeting, but dang. That’s one way to bring focus to the moment. 
    I suppose that also explains Vev’s appearance in the chapter icons, being associated with cultivationspren, and thus the goddess herself.
     
  9. ccstat

    Day 2 / Chapter 14

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here.
    It’s Day Two! And holy POV explosion, Batman! We’ve got a ridiculous number of people listed as viewpoint characters at the beginning of this section. That whole trade-back-and-forth-between-different-core-groups idea is going out the window, apparently. This looks like an answer to my question at the beginning of how a strict chronology was going to change the format and structure of the book. 
    Expected viewpoints, if slightly more numerous than usual for a non-climax section of the book: Szeth, Dalinar, Navani, Shallan, Kaladin, Lift.
    Extra viewpoints I wasn’t expecting but aren’t exactly a surprise: Jasnah, Adolin. (And Lopen, since he got some screen time in Dawnshard, but I’m listing him below with the rest of the Bridge Four team.)
    Viewpoints I definitely wasn’t counting on being included fall into two groups. Group 1 is Bridge Four, which is spread between Renarin (Brandon’s been hoarding those secrets, and I honestly thought we wouldn’t get much of anything from him until book 6), Rlain (basically the same boat as Renarin), Lopen, and Sigzil. Not a huge surprise that Sig and Lopen are showing up with a large battle on the way, but I’d mostly expect that to be relayed via Dalinar and Jasnah at this stage of the book. Not complaining obviously. 
    Group 2 is the world leaders Fen (Thaylenah) and Yanagawn (Azimir).
    If each person listed there got their own chapter that would be 14, essentially matching the length of Day One. Likely they will share chapters, but presumably none of them will be one-off appearances and we’ll return to them a few times, which amounts to the same thing. That’s a pretty serious split of page count. I wonder if the order they are listed in is order of appearance or wordcount or something else.
    Anyway, on to the main event.
    Chapter 14
    Title: Not Asleep
    Either that’s the Sibling being awake and better able to influence things, or it’s Dalinar and company losing sleep as the army approaches.
    Icons: Vev and Jester 
    Edgedancers and Worldhoppers, most likely, so Lift and Wit are the top predictions. Zahel, ghostbloods, and a smattering of other foreigners could fill in for Wit, and Lift isn’t the only Edgedancer either.
    Epigraph: We’re back with the Way of Kings. Appropriate given that Syl will be reading it to Kaladin, and I suspect Dalinar is still relying on his favorite book.
    Well, title drop in the first line. It’s Dalinar not sleeping, stressing about the coming contest of champions.
    How much better would all of this have gone if Dalinar had died in his brother’s place that fateful night?
    Not better at all. Gavilar was a disaster waiting to happen, as the readers are well aware by this point. I mean, theoretically he could have changed the way Dalinar has, but it seems highly unlikely. Point is, Dalinar retains a very rosy view of his brother, and I’m slightly surprised the Stormfather hasn’t told him more about that mess by now.
    I feel like the significance of the belt wrapping around a takama was explained at some point, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it would have been. Not sure why grandpa Kholin’s double-wrapped belt being displayed is important. You know, this is bugging me. I may check the coppermind. Alright, thanks to the Time Machine feature on the Coppermind (shoutout to all you arcanists out there!) I was able to look that up spoiler free. It’s a reference to the story Dalinar told in Oathbringer, where his swordmaster had inherited a three-wraps tradition from his own teacher. It started practical, since that teacher was super skinny, but became dogmatic as “three times is better than two” for tradition’s sake. 
    Cool that his instincts as a military commander are warning him that something is about to go wrong, just before the report comes in. 
    Pabolon the door guard. That’s a new name. 

    Jasnah’s not sleeping either. Probably a running theme, then, with the title. Also, it’s looking like the PoVs are order-of-appearance. We’ll go with that assumption until contradicted.
    Jasnah’s demiromantic relationship with Wit still feels odd to me. I kind of expected them to share a room but not a bed, now that they aren’t out on campaign, even if they remained physically involved. 
    The thing that feels most off about this is Jasnah getting the bed “because she’d read that relationships were about compromise.” She’s not so incapable in relationships as that, and she’s much more self-determined than to do something just because a self-help book said to. She thinks deeply about philosophy and game theory and people, so she would have a better reason than that for anything she did. 
    Jasnah hating the softness of the mattress fits, though.
    Wit would be so proud that he inspires irritationspren even in his sleep.
    Wit supposedly travels to other places in his sleep? I wonder how that works. He’s obviously still physically present on Roshar. He managed to infiltrate Kaladin’s nightmare when Odium tried to break him on Braize, so there’s some sort of sleep-mediated astral projection as a thing that happens in the cosmere, even beyond visions like the ones the Stormfather sent Dalinar. We haven’t seen evidence of that in any other series, though, so there’s no clues about what it is or isn’t capable of.
    See, here is Jasnah’s emotional intelligence on display. She can’t trust Wit because he lies to her, even beyond the secrets he keeps. And she sees him doing what he thinks is best rather than respecting other people’s wishes, which betrays that he doesn’t think of people as true peers. An actual romantic relationship requires some degree of parity between the parties.
    It’s also not working because she’s mostly ace, but needs more emotional connection which he’s not supplying. 
    The mattress is actual down, because Wit’s not Rosharan and thinks that’s what chicken feathers are for. Weird off-worlder.
    More emotional intelligence: relationships require sacrifice, but shouldn’t be built on a foundation of sacrifice. You go, Jasnah! See, that whole “I read it in a book” thing at the beginning was stupid. I’m headcanoning that line out of the story.
    She’s obviously invested in the relationship, though, for her to be worrying about it like this.
    Good points about the different reactions to Dalinar and Jasnah’s iconoclasm. Dalinar is (eventually) praised and followed, while the woman doing things differently is persecuted and despised. Lots of factors to complicate that conclusion, but it does boil down to something close to that in the end.
    Oh storms. She hates the soft bed because it reminds her of the time she got locked in a padded room for months as a child. I totally forgot that had happened until she brought it up, but no wonder a feather mattress isn’t restful. 
    Wit woke up realizing something’s wrong. Is it the army? Has he found the hole in his memories?
    I really can’t tell what he’s doing. Writing a table of investiture interactions, bringing out sand from Taldain, and steelpushing to test something? It’s not enough to go on yet. Now he’s awakening his clothes and the sand is floating, which i don’t recognize as a particular magic system. And he’s attracting shockspren and fearspren, so this is something serious. He didn’t know the answer right away so it’s not like Cultivation told him about Vargo’s ascension, which means this must be the memory loss and his reduction in Breaths.
    Yes. He deducted that he’s missing 3 and a half minutes, specifically from the time of his conversation with Odium.
    Jasnah asked to be included on Wit’s dealings with Odium, and Wit says, “well, I’m including you now, aren’t I.” Jasnah sees that red flag the same way I do. There’s no trust, no partnership here. You need to dump this guy.
    Anxietyspren: twisting black crosses. I suspect we’ve seen them before, but that’s not a description I remember.
    Wit is very concerned about what he’s missing, and at Jasnah’s encouragement is going to reach out for advice from an expert in godly contracts. Time to contact an “old friend…” Wild guess that it’s going to be Frost, but really we have no clue.

    Yup, Navani’s having her own restless night. Except she’s on an adventure exploring the crawlspaces of the tower. It’s very cool that she, an artifabrian, can intimately sense the workings of all the fabrials in the tower. It’s gotta be weird having an entire city grafted onto your soul, but also very cool.
    Human’s can’t hold towerlight, because they’re too leaky. That’s bizarre, because I thought the different flavors of investiture were essentially interchangeable in that raw form, and as long as the magic user in question has the correct spiritual key to access it, they can use it for their own purposes. But this is saying that the physical properties are different enough that they can’t be held in the same container. 
    Also cool for Navani is that her bond gives her access to the rhythms. I don’t understand why the Sibling’s bond would grant that when other nahel spren or even Bondsmith spren don’t, but Navani definitely deserves it after all the effort she put into hearing them for her research with Raboniel. 
    Her bond to the Sibling is much closer than the others with their spren. She can feel the planet’s rhythms, the mechanisms of the tower, and the songs that spren sing to the Sibling. They’ve become linked in a cognitive and spiritual way that has them sharing thoughts and sensations, which hasn’t been the case in other bonds we’ve seen.
    Hm. The bond also appears to be location-locked. She can’t leave the tower for more than ~10 days at a time, at most. On reflection, though, we don’t know that it’s different for anyone else. Their spren are able to follow them around through either the physical or cognitive realms, so they wouldn’t be away from their bonded partner for any length of time. Even the stormfather circles the planet regularly enough that the bond could be renewed before it started to degrade much. In fact, back in WoK Syl went looking for the poisonous leaves and almost forgot herself, suggesting that distance really does cause degradation of the bond. The only difference here is that the Sibling is strictly immobile, forcing Navani to remain with them.
    A keenspren? I don’t really know what that corresponds to. We don’t use keenness in normal conversation, and nothing about Navani’s current reflection feels like how I would use that word. 
    Navani is learning about willing spren fabrials, rather than the captured version, but says they are less efficient. Tell me more! Where are the inefficiencies? I mean, morally I can only support using an inefficient system that doesn’t include slavery, but I’m eager to get to work on the sprengineering.
    Too bad the war is coming to interrupt that thought.

    And here’s Queen Fen. Also awake, and in Thaylenah on the royal yacht. But in a hammock, because she and the prince consort snuck away from their guards. 
    I didn’t realize she was in her late sixties. I thought she was slightly younger than that. (Also recall that Rosharan years are 10% longer than Earth’s.)
    The lieutenant is flustered at catching them. She’s naked but puts a glove on her safehand.
    Along with word of the army approaching Azimir through Shadesmar, she simultaneously receives news about an offensive breaching the blockade of Jah Keved. They lost to the air support of the Skybreakers, which proceeded to sink half the armada and are escorting an assault fleet to Thaylen City.

    Gawx isn’t sleeping either. Oh, wait, I read that wrong. He is asleep. Um, nope. Nevermind. He’s only “sleeping” because that’s what the schedule says, and he’s Azish so the paperwork is right despite the reality of things. 
    The emperor’s position is very much a figurehead, but I thought that in Rhythm and in Oathbringer he had achieved some measure of respect and influence in his role. Doesn’t sound like it at the moment.
    Interesting that most Shards directly reporting to the Azish empire (as opposed to vassal states) are involved in public works in the way that Dalinar experimented on back in Way of Kings. Building roads and cutting trenches is a very productive non-martial application of those supernatural weapons. 
    This isn’t really a new swear, since we’ve had all those elements separately, but it’s the first new-ish one in the book so far and it’s nicely flowery. Onto the list it goes!
    That’s the end of the first chapter in Day Two, and we’ve already hit five of our fourteen viewpoints. I still feel like that’s a lot to include if we’re going back to each of them throughout.
     
  10. ccstat

    Interlude I-2

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here.
     
    Title: The Divided God
    Presumably this is related to his dual capacities with Passion and his intelligence/foresight/etc. 
    I note that the chapter illustration is altered from the intelligent/compassionate representation in Rhythm of War. This Taravangian has swords and frowns in both directions.
    This does also suggest that Taravangian is once again the (or at least one) repeating interlude character. Lots of reveals and secrets to look forward to in that case.
    Icon: Nale
    Well, Nale and his skybreakers are allied with Odium, so I suspect we’ll see some interaction there. Odium doesn’t really go in for Justice to look for a heraldic virtue connection.
    Holding a dying child, huh? Are you channeling your compassionate hospital years, Vargo, or your (identical) sinister death rattle harvesting operation? I am very concerned about this.
    Had to check the map. Tu Bayla is between Jah Keved and the Purelake. Nice that we get a brief infodump of culture in this country (sophisticated musical traditions, flower and star names, everybody has pet minks) before we never see it again. 
    He’s feeling (Passions!) empathy and sorrow for these starving children in famine-ravaged Tu Bayla, to the extent that he forms a physical avatar to be with them in their suffering. And Cultivation has stepped from the ether to speak with him. I can’t decide if Odium is using this part of his nature to manipulate her, but I expect that’s the case, even if he’s being genuine in his thoughts and feelings.
    The pact Rayse made forbids Odium from “taking direct action against any who are not fully given to you.” I wonder what that “fully” is doing, and how “against” precludes helpful urges as well.
    Alright, I read through the rest of that conversation without taking specific notes. The gist of it is Taravangian demands the alleviation of suffering through divine intervention, arguing that enough free will can be preserved. He also (at least vocally) committed to the mission of ensuring a single god rules the cosmere–this is ambiguously phrased to imply he wants to continue Rayse’s homicidal approach, but doesn’t actually confirm that Taravangian is similarly against recombining the powers. 
    The space of this conversation is limited, so I shouldn’t be too critical, but the philosophy on display here feels very simplistic. Maybe it’s because Taravangian is so focused on/distracted by the emotions he’s feeling. Maybe it’s just because I recently read a story steeped heavily in several centuries of Buddhist philosophical tradition, and the comparative depth (across half a million words, so obviously not a fair comparison) stands out.
    The piece that did stick out to me was his indictment of the other shards as fundamentally too afraid of death to utilize their power to the extent he deems appropriate to make the cosmere what it “ought” to be. In his mind, they killed Adonalsium and thus know that gods can die, and so they are guarding against that eventuality when they should be risking themselves to make things better.
    There are interesting parallels and differences with Mormon theology, a faith tradition Brandon has drawn from in the past for aspects of his worldbuilding. Here Taravangian is most similar to Lucifer, who in that tradition became Satan because he sought to (aggrandize himself by) removing free will so people wouldn’t suffer from the consequences of their now-nonexistent choices. The similarities are clear. As for differences, Taravangian’s approach is more tempered, appears less selfish, and is in opposition to flawed beings rather than a God of divinely perfect character. I like the complexity of the character, but I’m not sure I like the “villain origin story” coding that imbues this presentation of Taravangian’s plan and values.
    Anyway, I remain very curious how Taravangian’s stated goals and plans might differ from his internal intentions. I’m still rather expecting the current contest of Champions with Dalinar to be a bizarre bait-and-switch where the new Odium actually wants to lose in a specific way to achieve his real win condition. Probably a crazy assumption, but that’s my take–not sure if I’ve mentioned it here already.
    He’s clearly making an effort to keep the vessel and the shard distinct, with his Taravangian personality dominant. His ultimate plan remains to save everyone he can, and his priorities and choice of trade-offs are likely unchanged from his days with the Diagram.
     
  11. ccstat

    Interlude I-1

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here.

    Title: Kalak
    I’m surprised we’re getting a viewpoint from him already. We just barely left him behind. So either there’s something important he chose to withhold from Shallan that we’re going to find out about, or there’s another assassination attempt incoming. Hard to think of another reason to give us something from him associated with Day 1. I’m sure it’ll become obvious soon, though.
    Icons: Kalak (obviously)
    That crushing darkness, is that the Oathpact’s demands? That’s my best guess. Alternatives could include Odium’s power and presence, or Damnation, or possibly a weight of encroaching insanity from their method of immortality. (Some of these are not mutually exclusive.) But the other key bit is that Ishar is somehow shielding the rest of the heralds from some of this darkness. That is a tick in the column for Oathpact costs, I think.
    Awakened drapes? That’s either Azure or Zahel, and neither are the ones I would have pegged as following here. Although, based on the prologue I already suspected Zahel was up to much more that it appeared. At an outside possibility, we also met a trading contingent in Lasting Integrity who were from Nalthis and knew of Azure, so theoretically another Awakener could be involved. Still betting on Zahel, though. Interesting that he’s working so hard to avoid the notice of the Radiants.
    What. What in the nine hells? Felt!? Storms, I didn’t suspect him at all. That's a failure on my part. Of course the Scadrian would be a suspect for ghostblood membership. He’s apparently an Awakener, and he has a friend seon who was faking that whole traumatized act and who detests young love. 
    Ala (the seon) relayed everything about Mishram to Iyatil already, which means the ghostbloods are a step ahead. Felt interestingly has not love for Iyatil, calling her a “masked witch,” and apparently reports directly to Kelsier. Not a big surprise that a pre-Catacendre man wouldn’t get along with a Malwish (or related culture, not sure on her exact origin), or that his loyalty would be to Kel, but it does emphasize that there are likely divisions within the Ghostbloods despite Kel’s “one crew, one purpose” desires.
    Felt interpret’s Kelsier’s warning to be careful as being careful against whatever scheme Iyatil has running on the side. So even if Kel actually trusts her, Felt feels the need to watch his back. Honestly, I don’t blame him. 
    Or maybe I misread that? He’s being careful by not trusting the dagger, instead going old-school and hanging out with Kalak in order to have a source of info when things inevitably moving beyond their expectations. 
  12. ccstat

    Shallan's Sketchbook - Part III

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here.
     
    Shallan’s Sketchbook Part III: Urithiru
    Ooo, surprise illustration. I didn’t think we’d get another one until after the interludes. Looks like Urithitru from the Shadesmar side. The crystalline, translucent construction of light, almost like a ray tracing, is a sweet look. I don’t remember what it looked like before the tower came to life. Did we get a shadesmar description? We must have, at least from the base of the stairs they climbed down, but I don’t remember it obviously. 
    Those spren are freaking looking. A label would have been nice so we know which emotions are suddenly not okay to feel today. The mouth eyes in the maw of the six-legged lizard skinsuit were the first thing that caught my attention on this page. Going by the track record of spren being much larger in Shadesmar than I’m comfortable with, I’m going to assume this is basically a wall-clinging crocodile. Ew. 
    The combination sea urchin squid wouldn’t be that bad–indeed, I glossed right over it with barely a glance–except that it is hovering right over a little soul flame. To think that’s just floating along stalking someone as they go about their day, casually slurping up whichever emotion it feeds on… horrifying. It doesn’t matter what size this thing is if my personal manifestation in shadesmar is bite-size to it.
     
  13. ccstat

    Chapter 13

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here.
     
    Title: Promise
    I've got nothing reasonable to guess what this is about, so I'm going to make an unlikely guess and say it's something about Shallan's questioning of reality and the voice promising she can trust Adolin. 
    Icons: Pali
    No truthwatchers around, to my knowledge, so this is more likely to be connected to Pali’s divine attributes, learned and giving. Neither of those match tonally to a mad scramble to warn a city about the invading army, unless someone makes a sacrificial (giving) delaying action, which I'm not really expecting. So Pali feels out of place…unless maybe the warning the protagonists are about to deliver is interpreted as the sort of future foretelling that truthwatchers are known for? That's a pretty tenuous connection if that's the plan.
    Epigraph: Kal and Szeth together are the Wind’s champions. Notably that's both of them, not just the one she's been talking to. Also, it really calls into question what sorry if contest she would need champions for whole Odium and Dalinar are having their face-off at Urithiru. Best guess is still whichever Unmade has infested Shinovar.
     
    Several hours of flying is a greater distance than I was thinking. That should give them a decent lead on the slower boats, and therefore sufficient time to mount a defense assuming the highstorm doesn't prevent them from mobilizing. On second thought, that's an actual serious concern. The timing will be really tight with the storm interfering.
    Why were the beads clinging to Shallan? Were any of them the special ones that she Fortunately happened upon? Will it be a problem that she just lets them drop away here? Without her particular interaction with the beads before this, I would have thought the beads were attracted to the leakage of stormlight coming off of the lashing, but that feels a little mundane for the secrets that constantly surround Shallan.
    Oh, cool. The beads are still following her as she walks. And bouncing in place when she looks at them. Sweet! Can’t wait to see how this goes… oh wait. Are these not really beads but armor spren instead? I would have expected creationspren as the relevant subtype for lightweavers, but I could be wrong about that or they could be shapeshifting, since they can apparently do that in both the physical and cognitive realms. Then again, they could be actual beads doing something weird. 
    She picked one up and it felt like a regular shadesmar bead, so that’s a mark against mini sprenlings following her around for armor. Oh wait. No, it’s shifting item to item, and then popping out as a recognizable creationspren. I was right after all. 
    Huh. Does this mean that either or both of those supernaturally Fortunate beads she found before were actually her armor spren being helpful, rather than a result of Shallan drawing on Fortune or encountering highly motivated objects eager to oppose voidlight? That makes a lot of sense, but is slightly disappointing because I thought I was onto something with Shallan’s imbricated Fortune affinity.
    Pattern doesn’t seem to recognize that these are her armor spren. Then again he might just not think it’s important to mention.
    The creationspren are speaking in her mind, which suggests something about the mystery voice from earlier…except that they are acting like overexcited toddlers, just chanting her name. The mystery voice was much more direct in its communication. 
    Oh, now the oathgate is acting up. Won’t even talk to the guards. Sounds like an issue. Will that prevent inbound teleports from Urithiru as well, or just people trying to access from this end?
    The giant oathgate spren are inkspren, originally? I mean, that makes a ton of sense with the Elsecaller order being able to access Shadesmar and all, but I didn’t predict that. Super curious about the process.
    Woah, Sja-anat got to them? How? I would have guessed that she’d sent a smaller spren to spread the “corruption”, but there’s nothing to say that’s even possible. Shallan jumps immediately to the idea that she’d come personally to effect the change. Has the new Odium given Sja-anat free passage, after renegotiating her rebellion? Was this a plan already in the works and would have happened anyway? Hoping for another Sja-anat interlude this book.
    They are “ready for freedom,” to become “something else. Not of Odium. Not Honor. Free.”
    If Shallan had specifically claimed Dalinar as the supporting bondsmith, rather than both him and Navani, would the oathgate spren have agreed to transport them? Dalinar’s much more Honor than Navani, which seems to be one of the things they’re opposed to.
    Eesh. That hurts to hear, for people who are think of themselves as allies to spren and defenders of Roshar. But there’s no indication that the oathgate spren or other fabrial spren (I’m talking about soulcasters specifically, but presumably more exist) had any choice in their use. Presumably without Sja-anat’s touch they didn’t care about that or weren’t able to object, but now they do/can. 
    Glad Shallan’s in touch with her empathy and can express it here, despite the fear of the approaching army. 
    Oh, the spren did in fact agree to become the oathgate initially. It was a choice, which it now has a chance and the will to alter thanks to Sja-anat.
    They arrive mid-highstorm, of course. Can’t have any extra time to coordinate with the Azish. Still waiting to see her armor spren post-transfer to the physical realm.
    Oh, hey, spoke too soon. She immediately manifests her armor within seconds of leaving Shadesmar. But it ruins her long coat! Why don’t the creationspren accommodate her artistic fashion? They’ve been hanging out with her long enough to have gotten a sense of style, right? They smush her satchel up into her ribs and yank on her hair and everything. I thought living shardplate was supposed to be comfy and adaptable!
    Oh, it is adaptable, but requires user input to tell it what to do. Since none of these spren have been armor before they took some sort of ideal template to start with, and Shallan or Radiant can customize it. Neat that they quickly figured out a sketchbook compartment for her satchel. Radiant thinks it’s workable if Shallan will cut her hair super-short, which Shallan is definitely not on board with.
    I like Shallan’s imagination of a mis-formed shardplate by spren who get confused. Nice to see her indulge in a bit of whimsy, even if she only dares while Radiant is in the driver’s seat.
    Huh. Didn’t think of that. I rather assumed that Azimir was being singled out specially, but Radiant is right. This could well be a multipronged approach. Even if it’s not, I wonder how many of the other oathgates Sja-anat was able to touch.
    Shallan greeting both Kaladin and Syl with hugs is great. I like this trend from her. I’m surprised that Syl managed to be corporeal enough to hug. Seems like it was only barely, but they made it work. 
    And of course Adolin immediately jumps in with commentary on the fashion of Syl’s recreated uniform. Classic Adolin. And “I made it myself! Out of myself!” is a great line.
    Kaladin really does seem at-peace with his semi-retirement. He’s on a different path now, and he’s trusting others to get the battle part right. Good for him.
    What kind of name is Jez’s Duty for a pub? This is in Azimir, so Jezrien would be rendered Yaezir, which would make Jez a regular name? Or is it back in Urithiru and they’re inviting him there for after talking to Dalinar. Yeah, that makes more sense in context. So is Jez’s Duty the name of the Windrunner hangout?
    And Kal returned the hug to her and to Adolin. Props to Adolin for counting Syl in the “four of us” raincheck for drinks…but what about Pattern and Maya? Neither are very human looking at the moment, but they’re also present, right? Still, it’s a notable contrast to Syl’s treatment by several others so far.
    Ah, there’s the promise. To be okay, and meet at the end for drinks, jokes, and laughter. I can’t decide if that’s a death flag with a narrative promise that we’ll get a pre-Beyond send-off like Wayne or Vin or Tien, or if it’s actually a possibility for these people. Obviously that’s the point. I like the willful hope it injects into these characters, though.
    Saw that coming right before it happened, but not fast enough to actually predict it here: Shallan summoned Testament instead of Pattern when she went to bring out her shardblade. Importantly, there was no painful screaming. Testament’s pain and loss were keenly felt, but followed by reconciliation. Remind me, did Testament ever scream in Shallan’s mind in the other times she wielded her? I honestly can’t remember, and if the answer’s no then it’s quite possible that Shallan had regressed too far to hear it at that point. Then again, Testament also may have been less dead than other deadeyes.
    Dual wielding living shardblades meands dual-wielding shape-shifting weapons, not necessarily giant impractical swords. That idea of a sword plus shield is a good start. Radiant is going to have a lot of fun as she explores what’s possible.
    I love that Shallan approaches the tower with an artist’s eye rather than the military gaze that Kaladin left with. It gives a very different cast to their descriptions, and the way she immediately notices the color difference of towerlight is a good touch.
    Shallan is already thinking about making plans about Mraize, rather than the battle. I hope she doesn’t forget about Iyatil.

    Kaladin really is feeling a new depth and range of emotions. Glad he ships Adolin and Shallan and is happy for them. Yay friendship! His analysis of how he and Shallan would self-destruct together in a hypothetical relationship basically matches my thoughts. Glad they dodged that bullet.
    Aww, if Kal accepts the heirship, he’d become brothers with Adolin and Renarin. That may be reason enough to go for it, I say.
    And Kaladin commits to his promise made to Shallan. He’s gonna survive–he’s already decided.
    And that’s the end of Day One. Should have realized that once they started talking about the arrival of midnight. Up next: Interludes!
     
  14. ccstat

    Chapter 12

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Title: Beyond the Brands
    Is Kal going to heal from his slave brand? That would say something about his personal development, but I doubt it at this point. Although, I vaguely remember that already happened in the last book? Man, my memory is crem sometimes. Either way, his next intended stop is visiting Rlain’s party, so this title probably is about the developing brotherhood of Bridge Four after all of them (except Dabbid, yet) have achieved radiance. 
    Icon: Jes again.
    Lots of windrunners at a party. But if this is about Rlain I would have expected the truthwatcher patron, Pali.
    Epigraph: Jasnah didn't go to Shinovar, but also apparently didn't know about the expedition when it was happening. Surely Dalinar would have mentioned that in a briefing, right? Maybe she's just saying she didn't know about the bigger events that we readers are also still ignorant of?

    Wait, Kaladin's armor spren are usually just hanging out around his body as visible glowing lights? He's got a constant sparkly halo? Windrunners must be way flashier than Elsecallers, because Jasnah didn't walk around with a visible aura of “look at me, I'm awesome.” That is so extra, Kal must hate it…except that he doesn't seem to mind here, in this scene. It doesn't come with the same resentment as the lightened eyes he gets from his radiance, so maybe he's happy to sparkle everywhere he goes. I’m sure Adolin will approve.
    Oh, I was confused about the timing. The highstorm is already here, but he's not leaving yet because he can gate to Azimir to catch the same storm further west, which means he has the storm’s travel time (an hour, maybe?) to chat with Rlain and company. 
    Teft has a statue? Is that something that happened at the end is RoW? 
    Is this tavern where the party is being hosted the same one as the wedding party in the last book? Is it the favorite Windrunner hangout spot? Looks like it must be, with the framed picture of Teft on the wall. Well, maybe not. That seems more like they brought it here especially for the party rather than the establishment already had it up.
    Do laughterspren buzz audibly? Or is that just a description of how they move like flying insects? I don't think I remember what they look like. 
    That's a good point, Kal, about Rlain choosing to stay at the tower instead of going with Leshwi and Venli to help the new listeners. I was expecting him to at least split his time. Makes sense I guess for him to focus on working with Renarin, since they're both bonded to “corrupted”/“enlightened” truthwatcher spren.
    Good. You've gotten over that grief of betrayal and are justly angry without wanting the old Moash back. 
    It feels almost cheap how easily spren like gloryspren are attracted now with the tower so energized. I mean, it's a nice moment and expresses Kal’s sincere depth of feeling, but with how rare they usually are, I have to wonder if this moment really deserves it.
    Oh, Renarin is there too. I didn't see him mentioned and forgot that he hung out with Bridge Four.
    Okay, yes, Kal’s brands are already healed, and now he's getting the tattoo in a way his body accepts. 
    Sugzil being intimidated by his new role is natural, and Kal encouraging him is a great continuation of his habit of inspiring others. Also, Lopen refraining from a joke is a subtle nod to his resolution to be better at the end of Dawnshard.
    The rest of the goodbyes didn't really land for me. Lopen's in particular felt like it overstayed its welcome. There's such a thing as drawing out a joke too long. They weren't bad, though, just kind of meh. And it's good that they had the moment on screen, even if it didn't resonate with me. 
    Even I forgot to count Syl for a second and got confused about who was with Kaladin and Szeth. If the readers are having trouble treating spren like real characters, no wonder their personhood is sometimes ignored but the people of Roshar.
    If so, his powers of description are severely lacking. Glad to see that Lift is still being a good influence. 

    That leaves a lot of room for where this could go. 
    Also, adding Nightblood to Szeth’s straight man routine makes for very entertaining comedy. 
  15. ccstat

    Shallan's Sketchbook - Part II

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Shallan’s sketchbook part II
    Musicspren! Not a whole lot to analyze in this page, but I do have a few thoughts.
    These musicspren are much more grassile and thin than I gathered from the descriptions. Gallant having a ghostly afterimage made me think the spren were a similar shape to the Ryahadium, but their proportions are quite distinct. 
    This drawing also shows less overlap than I imagined. If they are separated by half a pace, it's a very noticable effect.
    What does she mean “true spren”? Is this in reference to the top comment that implies musicspren are an original creation of Shadesmar and not a reflection of human minds? Or is she saying that “true spren” are the nahel spren with obvious individuality and personhood? I can't tell what this is intended to mean. 
     
  16. ccstat

    Chapter 11

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Title: Musicspren
    Gonna rescue Gallant and learn more about the Ryshadium and their bonded spren.
    Icon: Ash
    First repeat of the book. I suspect that Brandon just wanted to give us a full set in the first 10 chapters + prologue, and that from here on they will follow a less forcefully varied sequence, but we'll have to see. This one obviously follows Shallan's fourth Truth and the accompanying lightweaving breakthrough. More lightweaver magic ahoy!
    Epigraph: does the use of “while” here suggest that the two contests (the clash of champions and the mystery event set to occur in Shinovar) are going to happen simultaneously? Or is it just a looser statement of “despite that one thing being important, this other one is too”? The Wind thinks Kal and Szeth's thing is “equally vital” to Dalinar's contest, if not moreso. Best guess is still an unmade (as parallel to BAM that Shallan will be seeking out), backup guess being Ishar (the OG Bondsmith who instigated the destruction and evacuation of Ashyn, and who is a current threat while insane).
     
    Oh, I thought that was a kill shot and Abidi would be dead. No such luck, and he's regenerating. Forget the other Fused and their backup, this immediate fight is still a major obstacle. 
    Uh oh. “Substantiation” is the name for solid illusions, and it's apparently on the list of forbidden surgebinding skills–presumably the same list that keeps Radiants from destroying Roshar with out-of-control magic. That's worrying by itself, as of the fact that Abidi considered it a big enough deal to immediately withdraw to report its usage to Odium.
    It's “supernaturally convenient” to find the bead she needs right away–she's learning to draw on Fortune for other things, too. It would be worth going back and looking for other lucky breaks in the books so far, though I imagine that the effort she's making to repair the bond with Testament is strengthening the imbrication that gives her that access. Presumably her ability to use Fortune is also increasing. 
    Who is speaking in her mind and giving her hints about Adolin’s location? Veil? Pattern/Testament? Shallan herself isn't sure, so it is most likely none of the above. 
    The bead’s eagerness to help seems most likely to be a result of the contrast between Stormlight and Voidlight that was present during their fight. If the beads really do hate voidlight, then some helpfulness in this moment would be natural.
    Oh no! I thought about the effect of Substantiation on Radiant, but didn't consider it might lead Shallan to question reality. Adolin is too perfect, so she must have made him up… that's a mood, and a step back for her psyche. I knew we were all being a bit too optimistic here. Adolin, you'd better jump in to reassure her right quick! And try not to get interrupted by more Fused if you can help it.
    The voice tells her to trust him. Who is it? Title suggests a musicspren, and Gallant wanting to help save Adolin makes a lot of sense, but that's a lot of sapience that I wasn't expecting from a “lesser” non-nahel spren, so I'm somewhat doubtful. 
    Mishram manifesting in her creations of beads not just in her drawings was a terrifying surprising-yet-inevitable development, and BAM’s vows of vengeance and violence are concerning to say the least, especially the way they overwhelm Shallan here. Granted, she wasn't expecting that mental assault, but it was also only a shadow of a shadow of the unmade. I'm getting shivers here thinking about it. 
    Shallan gets super Fortunate again by finding exactly the bead she needs, and she now has a flying submersible room. 
    Sure, we're backtracking along the path to the Dark Side. We were at suffering, then hate, now to fear. Next step is practically neutral! You're almost a not-Sith, Shallan!
    I thought Abidi was gone, but he's still here leading the attack and decides to focus on Shallan again. So much for withdrawing. 
    Adolin cracking Abidi’s gemheart is great, and Radiant appreciates him. Doesn't look like it kills this body, which I was going to be disappointed about but it doesn't really matter whether he gets rescued now or re-embodied later. There's no appreciable difference to Shallan’s group as long as the attack is broken off.
    Radiant can shoot a shardbow? Awesome! Definitely worth Substantiating her. I wouldn't have thought the solid manifestation would have that sort of range.
    She managed to drive her submarine to retrieve all of their spren. Glad that none of them had to wait long at the bottom of the sea.
    The compass fabrial points to:
    That's the Sibling’s description, and it's “far in the distance.” The only thing local it could be is the Origin, but I sincerely doubt that's it. My money is on this being the site of Adonalsium’s shattering.
    I really have to ask what the Current is. My first thought is similar to oceanic currents, a flow of investiture across the cosmere. My second thought is less likely, but it could be more like an electric current, a directed supply of investiture energy. The difference between the two ideas  is in the connotations. The electricity analog would imply a designed system, rather than the oceanic natural system, and the difference in energy between the Current and its ambient surroundings would be much more dramatic for inside vs outside of the “wires” than for inside vs. outside the flowing “water”. The ocean metaphor feels far more fitting in general.
    The Grand Knell sounds like it must be the source of the Pure Tones of the cosmere, but we don't know enough about those to really make a strong conclusion.

    Gallant is hanging out with a herd of ghostly horses, the same as the one that Notum rode before. These must be the musicspren, then. Interesting that Gallant attracted an entire herd of them. 
    They can run on top of the beads, without constant expenditure of Light. Or at least I think it's not a high cost? Those glowing footprints and flying sparks seem like a use of kinetic investiture, just cheaper than a Lashing. But maybe they can also fly? Shallan thinks so, and I'm reading this at Christmas time, so reindeer are on the mind. 
    What do musicspren look like in the physical realm? Shallan can't see the resemblance between that and their horse forms. 
    Shallan realizes that there's a musicspren bonded to Gallant. She hasn't thought this far yet, but the way it overlaps Gallant’s body even here on Shadesmar is a strong indicator that it somehow resides in the horse, possibly in a gemheart. Otherwise I would expect them to be independent like the radiants and their nahel spren. That does make me wonder about how Venli and other radiant singers will experience Shadesmar. I expect the spren that give them their forms will remain bonded inside the gemheart, but that the nahel spren will act just like the human’s spren…except that Timbre is also trying to keep the voidspren in Venli’s gemheart trapped and suppressed. Would that make a difference? 
    One of the spren comes up to Adolin for a moment, recognizing him. That must be the one that had been bound to his horse killed on the Shattered Plains, Sureblood. Neither Adolin nor Shallan appear to have made that connection yet. 
    Making musicspren illusions around them is a good idea, and Shallan being able to do it without drawing them or even taking a memory is an impressive step in her ability. 
    The lights are a large singer army, thousands strong. I'm impressed by the logistics of preparing mandra-pulled boats for those troops and coordinating the assault. 
    Drehy hypothesizes that the army came by way of the singularity in the Horneater peaks, which makes sense but I wasn't sure how much the characters knew about that. I also didn't remember the peaks being occupied by the singers, but if the Fused are marching an assault force through there and counting on it being a secret, they must have very secure control of the area. Actually, thinking back I recall that being an issue in Oathbringer. So yes, the Horneater Peaks must be in Fused control, which doesn't say good things about what's happening with the unkalaki. How was Rock planning on receiving his people's judgement if they didn't have access to the shardpool any longer? I can't imagine their people's guardianship of the perpendicularity is standing up in the face of Odium’s direct attention. Then again, Cord was saying in Dawnshard that she wanted to become a Shardbearer in order to help protect the pool now that it is about to be recognized as a valuable target, and that was only a few weeks ago in-world. I think I’m a bit confused about the state of that territory. 
     
  17. ccstat

    Chapter 10

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here.
     
    Title: Book-Quartermaster
    Sounds like a librarian, militarized (i.e. Alethi), but this is right after Syl promised to show us her possessions, so I'm not sure if it's really what it sounds like. 
     
    Icons: Nale
    Maybe there's Skybreakers supporting the Heavenly Ones in Shallan's section? Just and Confident as heraldic attributes are fairly widely applicable, but morning about them jumps out as matching the title or the supposed next scenes for either of our current viewpoint characters. 
     
    Epigraph: Oh right. Szeth is a skybreaker. The beginning of his quest would explain the icon. As for the epigraph itself, yes we know that this turns out to be important. I guess the temporal sequence is being highlighted here? Szeth choosing to undertake the quest precedes Kaladin listening to the Wind, so none of the early interactions with Wind before she spoke to him at the beginning of the book count for Jasnah’s purposes. 
     
    When you say “scribe’s supply depot,” does that mean the text archives or the spare parchment reserve? Because it's a different thing if we're entering the national library as compared to Staples. I'm guessing it's closer to the former. 
     
    Oh, he's drawing stares not because of who he is as Stormblessed, but because he's a non-ardent man entering the domain of writing and reading and research, all feminine pursuits.
     
    Kal as Syl’s "pack human" clearly merits the archivist’s disapproval. That disdainful sniff says it all. I'm curious about how often Syl would have come here to develop even a passing familiarity with these people, not to mention the accumulation of possessions that she can't even hold herself.
     
    The woman is also not super impressed at serving spren, either. Apparently Sylphrena had to get Navani to pull rank and give her permission to access whatever books and materials she needed. 
     
    Movable type is now in use, though still in early stages of making an impact on the industry of book production. The innovation came out of Jah Keved, sounds like. I'm kinda surprised it wasn't Azish with their love of bureaucracy and paperwork. This printed copy of the book is considered disposable, though, so the technology is doing its job and bringing prices down. Interesting too that Syl calls out the difference as being less smooth, with the words “broken up.” Going by the women's script, I wouldn't have expected any sort of flowing lines between letters like in the handwritten/cursive forms of earth languages using Latin alphabets, for example. Obviously there would be annoying differences for someone accustomed to reading hand written materials, but that's not the description I would have expected. Then again, mechanically printed typefaces being blocky rather than smooth is a common feature, so maybe it's just my unfamiliarity with Alethi that's giving me a false impression of the language. 
     
    Oh, it's The Way Of Kings. I forgot that Syl was planning to be his scribe. I vaguely recall that coming up early in RoW. Good to see she's following through, I guess, though it's hard to imagine how she's going to perform that function when she can't hold a reed to scribe with. I presume she can read, but don't remember for sure. 
     
    The archives are filled with logic spren, which must make the scribes and ardents happy. 
    Huh. Now I'm wondering how logicspren respond to logical fallacies and whether that in itself would be a beneficial tool for vetting one's thought process. If so, I wonder what the limits of that would be, and what additional biases you might fall afoul of by relying on a magical reflection of humanity’s beliefs about logic. Could get deliciously circular. I want Shallan to ask Pattern about this at some point!
     
    Syl referencing genitalia as a chull makes me immediately think of the profanity filter here on 17S. I don't know if it is still in use, but for a while there were cosmere terms like chull that got automatically inserted into posts in place of rude language. An inspiration for this scene, perhaps? 
     
    Syl is clearly having fun messing with this woman. “Sometimes I feed it grass” indeed. 
     
    “Do you even exist?” : One of those sensitive questions that you can casually ask without risk of offense. Good going, Kaladin. (Even though it's a relevant question that many fans were likely wondering about themselves. I suspect the answer is no, and the clothes she creates are substance not covering.)
     
    The idea that Syl's default form is a copy/reflection of who she is on Shadesmar makes sense, but then why does Lopen's spren hardly ever take humanoid form and constantly shift into new shapes despite Syl saying that changing takes extra effort? There's someone more individual to this.
     
    Oh, they have quills now. Those “exotic pens” might be light enough for a spren to handle. Yes! Syl can do it, barely. Takes a lot of effort, but she can write with it. 
     
    Ooo, the archivist is very judgy and disparaging here. Don't you be mean to my Syl! Seems like Kaladin agrees with me, and he's going to call her out on it. 
     
    Oh, he did that in a much kinder way than I expected. Still harsh, but leaning into his newfound role as therapist, pushing her to get help. 
     
    That shamespren is a reminder that having your emotions broadcast for all to see has major impacts on how interactions work, and would be considered a major drawback to people coming from other (earth-like) cultures. Navani supercharging the tower and drawing in so many spren will exacerbate that issue. 
     
    Yes, this was the library, though the supply of materials like Syl acquired drives home that it functions differently from any library I've used. 
  18. ccstat

    Chapter 9

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here.
    Title: Tossing Spears
    This could be a violent encounter in all likelihood, or less likely a training scenario with the squires, but I choose to think that Kal and Szeth will make a game out of throwing things back and forth while they fly to Shinovar.
     
    Icons: Taln
    Hopefully Kal will get to talk to Taln and Ash before he leaves… but it could also be the endurance or resourcefulness that Taln is known for 
     
    Epigraph: That's basically something I was tempted to say in previous chapters: Kaladin's listening strongly resembles the Edgedancer ideals. I do wonder if the listening that becomes the pivotal key moment Jasnah mentions is about listening to the Wind itself or to something/someone else.
     
    Well, the opening line is about Kaladin stopping to listen, so this seems to be an important moment. I was expecting that to take longer. What has the Wind got to say? 
     
    Good to see that the newest batch of squires have nearly achieved gender equality. That is a much faster shift in cultural acceptance than I expected in the short time since Lyn joined up.
     
    Skar is tossing spears out a window. That's our title. Presumably it's not aimed at anything. Is it for the squires to retrieve later? No it must be a readiness/awareness exercise, to see if they can notice the loss of their weapons and evaluate how they respond to that. It's my best guess, at least. 
     
    Yes, that's what it seems like. Situational awareness assessment and training. Seems to be a familiar drill Skar likes to use with some regularity.
     
    Seems like Lusintia came alone, she wasn't part of a larger early group that I guessed might have departed before anyone noticed. Just her on her lonesome, which is brave of her. She did tell them to expect more soon, presumably referring to the dozen that departed when Shallan did. 
     
    Solemnityspren. No surprise that one's rare, though I suppose Kal might have a better chance than most to have seen one before. Looks like a spiraling serpent. 
     
    makes me wonder what is being culturally ascribed to the Wind, as distinct from the Storm. Those cultural elements will have influenced (and drawn from) the nature of the spren who embodies the Wind.
     
    This is a fascinating idiom whose literal and surface meaning feel straightforward but which also seems like it has a lot of context and depth to add nuance to its usage. It feels wistful and aspirational in the way Skar uses it here. 
     
    Skar at least convinces him not to leave without saying goodbye. Glad someone is giving good advice. It's a neat feeling to realize that Kaladin is aiming to be in Azimir when the other protagonists come through, not because they'll be there but because they are being escorted by Drehy, and that's someone he needs to talk to. It's a good way to convey that the rest of the world matters beyond our main characters. 
     
    Wait, Kaladin is giving out hugs now? He really is feeling good! 
     
    What possessions has Syl been collecting? Initial guess is leaves and scraps of fabric, similar to what she brought Kaladin away back in WoK before honor chasm, but it could really be practically anything.
     
    …
    Notably, Shallan traces her fear of the bead ocean not to the time she almost drowned in it in Kharbranth when she first soulcast that goblet, but rather to her childhood visions of Shadesmar back when she was bonding Testament. Visions that she now remembers, for a rather dramatic change from the pervasive repression of the books so far. 
     
    Radiant making a building doesn't seem like the sort of strategy that will help retrieve Adolin from beneath the surface, even if it's a good way of getting herself out of danger. I hope it's only step one. 
    Oh. Drehy grabbed Adolin already. That is encouraging that they've got a competent protector, but also a little bit of a letdown that Shallan's efforts didn't help with the rescue. Radiant doesn't care, though, she's just relieved. The disappointment is entirely a reader reaction to subverted expectations.
     
    Pattern and Testament got dropped in the ocean. That's what I expected, as it's the natural choice, but it is a pretty stark reminder that for all their personhood, spren are also treated as things at least part of the time. 
     
    Adolin has memorized and accounted for the mental/cultural idiosyncracies of the different types of Fused from a command perspective. He remains a capable military leader regardless of the power disparity between himself and these new superpowered foes.
     
    And yet the situation doesn't fit those expectations–the Fused used the cover of the beads to sneak up on Shallan's platform. 
     
    Despite the interchangeability of different flavors of investiture when actively manipulating the beads in Shadesmar, the beads “hate” voidlight. I'm not sure how that manifest practically, though. The cave appears to be an intentional construct made by the Heavenly One she's fighting, not an exclusion bubble resulting from beads fleeing the Voidlight.
     
    Very convincing argument there. Not sounding unhinged at all. 
     
    Shallan's next truth is admitting her fear. I didn't see that coming for her. It seemed like her fear was not a hidden part of herself to any significant degree. 
     
    The flow of internal vs. external speech as Shallan and Radiant change places is unexpectedly powerful as a device to convey tension and crescendo in this moment of personal breakthrough. 
     
    His name is Abidi the Monarch, future ruler of Roshar, and someone not at all suffering delusions of grandeur.
     
    I thought for a brief moment that Shallan was going to merge with Radiant, but it's obviously too early in her journey for that. Solid illusions is a much more natural next step, and well telegraphed by her discussion with Restares. Manifesting swords where you want them is a pretty useful trick as well. Notably, this has the potential to make Radiant a more real and separate aspect rather than a more integrated one, though we'll have to see how Shallan's mental state develops from this. She's looking very strong at the moment. 
     
    Despite the victory here, there are still 5 more attackers plus the mystery lights suggesting a larger supporting force. They're not out of this yet, and we have to check back in with Kaladin before we find out how difficult their situation even is.
     
  19. ccstat

    Chapter 8

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here.
     
    Title: A Coming Storm
    Maybe the Wind will elaborate on its warning? 
     
    Icon: Chana
    Continuing the no-repeats pattern so far. A reputation for destruction would match a devastating storm. 
     
    Epigraph: apparently the Wind has no future sight, just experience and intuition. I'm not sure how Jasnah is drawing conclusions about how Wind usually behaved compared to how she acted for literally all the time anyone alive knew about her. I mean, sure, you're a historian, but things like “impeccable memory but fanciful interpretation of facts” is a bit out there as a description if you then say “... except for the times she interacted with us.” Maybe I'm misinterpreting this tiny excerpt, and the bit about being uncharacteristically focused “in those days” is referring to a more narrow time span.
     
    Szeth's detachment is really disturbingly off putting here. I can see why Kaladin is nervous around him. 
     
    I'd either forgotten or not known that Night blood was projecting his voice to others nearby rather than just his (/her) bearer. I don't think that was a thing before. (As for pronouns, Kaladin performed the voice as masculine here, but my recollection is that Nightblood developed a more feminine voice after traveling with Azure for however many years. That demonstrated fluidity plus the sword’s problems with memory retention mean that it's hard to assign a preference and trust it to be firm.)
     
    Lift told Nightblood to ask about snacks. Good influence on the potential world-devourer.
     
    Syl and the armor Spren are hanging out with Navani. If they are doing so at every opportunity, it stands to rain that a whole lot of other Spren are doing so as well. The area must be practically saturated with them at this point. I wonder what effects that concentration of interest and attention will have.
     
    Kal is noticing the Wind accompany him now, which seems to be a frequent occurrence, if not quite constant. 
     
    Leyten packed two extra uniforms for Kal. That's smirk worthy. Someone is expecting this jaunt to be less than peaceful and knows Kaladin’s tendencies. 
     
    What's the rock? Tien used to give him those, so that's the obvious guess to it appearing next to the wooden horse, but it's also a stretch to imagine how that would have appeared in his pack. 
     
    Dabbid gave Kal a hug! That's remarkable progress right there. And he's whistling! The honor spren following him around is supposed to be the key reveal here, but it feels like a bonus on to of the main evidence of recovery, in my opinion. 
     
    Syl recognizes the spren as Lusintia, the one who guided Shallan around and didn't show up to say goodbye. Looks like she did change her mind after all, and the dozen spren who left together aren't the sum of those who have decided to help. I hope she gets to talk to Shallan later.
     
    Shallan is very judgy of the younger generation. She doesn't like Lusintia or Leyten’s Spren Ethenia. At least she still responds well to flattery. Good job, Leyten.
     
    Looks like it's Heavenly Ones attacking Shallan's group. It makes me wonder how many of that order of Fused followed Leshwi. She was clearly a leader of some importance among them, but a wholesale defection would be too much to expect. There's at least 8 here in the attacking force. 
     
    Shallan's illusion is a single use distraction, and it's interesting that the Fused immediately identified her as the source. I'm not sure if that's hard to do or not. 
     
    Adolin dropped into the beads, and Shallan dives in to rescue him, of course. To do so she has to inhale the Stormlight of the Lashing used on her, which I was expecting her to do up until she actually did it and I realized I didn't know how hard it is to reclaim kinetic investiture placed by someone else. I'd presume it's not as easy as reclaiming light from your own workings. Have we seen anyone else do this before? I only really noticed because the mental voice saying “Be. Drehy.” tells me that there are identity shenanigans going on. 
     
    Next important question: whose voice was that? It seemed more like an external voice than the internal thoughts of Shallan or one of her aspects. Testament, maybe?
     
  20. ccstat

    Chapter 7

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
     
    Title: Lost Blades
    This is one of the big mysteries for the series so far. Where have all of the dead blades gone since the Recreance? We're talking thousands of them that have gone missing over the centuries. Has someone in Shadesmar been doing something to sequester the deadeye Spren away from the physical realm? How would that be possible? 
     
    Icon: Battah
    Elsecallers have affinity for Shadesmar, so that's a good guess for the speculations about the title, but attributes of wisdom and care (caring? carefulness?) might match as well. 
    It's also interesting to note that so far we haven't had any repeated icons in the chapter headings. That hasn't been the case in previous books, I believe. 
     
    Epigraph: the Wind is being spoken of in the past tense. Is the vanishing that will occur the sort of thing that will result in its death in some degree, such that the Wind will cease to exist as it is now?
    Also, Jasnah says that the inhuman thinking of spren is becoming less common, which makes it sound like modern spren are adopting more human characteristics. I'm not sure if that's meaningful or not given that humans weren't on Rosharan at the time that Wind came into being. It's natural and expected that more recent entities would reflect the new residents of the planet.
     
    Adolin is riding the horse while the windrunners fly it back to the tower. I love it. 
     
    Poor Adolin had to leave behind 90% of his clothing. Living really rough here.
     “Adolin’s pet greatsword.” I don't think you understand what a pet is, Shallan. This sword is way less alive than spren-derived blades. 
     
    Ryahadium have stone hooves? I don't think I knew that detail. An interesting adaptation. That sounds like the sort of adaptation that would have additional consequences beyond durable feet, and not all of them positive biologically.
     
    Maya has a sense of humor now! She's progressing so well
     
    Oh, it's a passive process–when a Shardblade is forgotten, out of sight and out of mind, it gradually fades away and the spren returns to the cognitive realm. Nobody needed to pull them back, they just returned naturally when they were lost and forsaken. That also means that my hypothesis about someone either protecting our preying on the deadeye Spren is wrong. They are lone wanderers with nobody yet paying attention to them for good or ill. 
     
    Looks like Vathah is the designated lightweaver to stay behind. Oh, maybe not, there's just not enough room so none of them can come along on the windrunner express. He's just taking the long way home. 
     
    Vathah’s got a crush on Ishnah, and…Ishnah is a goth. With lightweaving supplying the makeup. I didn't anticipate that as being a thing on Roshar, but I guess edginess is universal. 
     
    Shallan figured out Felt is from off world, and it's notable that this has become a pretty prosaic observation. Worldhoppers aren't a shock to encounter anymore. 
     
    Shallan's musing on the benefit of an alerted perspective to find hidden beauty in the world is beautiful. And it prompts Kelek to advise her about making her illusions more real–something that she's done before. The example she comes up with is Veil and Radiant manifesting at the battle of Thaylen Field.
     
    His advice: something fleeting can be important despite its transience, and something eternal doesn't have to be important or relevant to you. 
     
    Shallan takes that to mean that her personal journey with accepting her aspects and her memories makes the expedition a personal success, and the good she did for Kelek is worthwhile on its own regardless of any contribution to the war effort.
     
    Shallan passes on the hug again. To Wit before, now to Kelek.
     
    A heliodor fabrial…that's the detecting kind. Is it going to detect the oathgate for navigation? It's called a compass, but it's explicitly for use in Shadesmar so what is used as “North”? It's not detecting the oathgate or any other nearby landmark since they use it by keeping a particular heading for the full distance. It can't be the strange sun either, since they would hardly need a fabrial for that.
     
    And Wit didn't give them any news about Urithiru after all. The first they hear about Navani or the Sibling is Drehy’s comment. 
     
    The Sibling reviving apparently convinced the oathgate spren to cooperate with the human forces. That's a switch. Large repercussions spread far and wise. 
     
    Gallant is so excited to fly, it's adorable. 
     
    Why does Radiant emerge here in the sky? Is it because Shallan retreated or because something about the situation (enduring physical discomfort, perhaps?) matched her aspect? But Shallan comes out again moments later because she loves Adolin and wants to take a memory of him being adorably goofy. 
     
    “Right up until they were attacked.” Knew things were going too smoothly. The real question is whether it's Fused or Skybreakers or both. And since the next chapter is a likely a Kaladin chapter, we will have to wait for a while to find out how badly it goes.
  21. ccstat

    Chapter 5

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Note: I just realized that I’ve been calling the book Winds and Truth (plural) when it’s really just Wind. That’s important given what we have learned about Wind the being, so I’ll adjust going forward and correct the overall blog title.
    Title: What Might Still Be
    First thought is a reference to Testament, second thought is something to do with Shallan’s aspects. Probably it’s none of those.
    Icons: Ash
    We got lightweaving to do.
    Epigraph: The author considers herself both a historian and a philosopher. It doesn’t sound like Jasnah, though (to whatever extent I remember her tone after however long it’s been).
    A surrealist drawing of the vertiginous experience of Lasting Integrity’s impossible architecture? Yes please! I doubt we’ll actually get that sketchbook page, but I’ll hold out hope.
    Strange faces are sneaking into her art. The last time that happened she ended up faking a suicide attempt as she fled from Pattern and the other cryptics surrounding her. But now she’s in Shadesmar, so what could she be seeing? One unlikely alternative is the way faces showed up all over the place in the landscape of the White Sand graphic novels, which would indicate an influence from Autonomy or one of her avatars. I would be surprised if that were the case here, though. Not that Bavadin wouldn’t have a strong motivation to push on events here, but it would require an overextension of power and high risk of being caught and injured if she involved herself so directly in Odium’s affairs.
    Hm, the first face she mentions is a singer with a crown-like carapace, similar to the face I identified as an unhappy honorspren in the mandra sketch. 
    Now that’s interesting. It’s the same face repeated across multiple drawings, not a variety of faces showing up. And she mentions the warping of her drawing at Urithiru when Re-Shephir was infesting the tower. I sadly don’t remember the details of how that manifested in her drawings outside of the vortex sucking in the tower in the one image we got from the sketchbook. I ought to go reread those sections at some point soon.
    The rest of their party, or at least Shallan’s agents have been granted access to Lasting Integrity. That's not entirely a surprise, but it speaks to a shift in the politics of the city, and also I had been under the impression that the rest of the envoy had moved on rather than simply waiting outside the walls. 
    You know, it hadn't occurred to me that the windrunners coming to Lasting Integrity would be bringing honorspren in direct opposition to the locals who are arguing to remain unbonded. Not the most politically delicate of choices, but with the skybreakers working in opposition, there really wasn't another option for fast travel. At least not without using elsecallers who don't seem to be a well-used resource at this point. Perhaps their numbers are too low?
    Shallan is bemoaning the low turnout of volunteer honorspren convinced by Adolin’s arguments. I personally am surprised they got any. Twelve is a decent start, especially given that it’s unreasonable to expect every member of a population to sign up for the war. Your entire people cannot be warriors, presumably even if you are cognitive entities. Even the perpetually warring Alethi need support staff and camp followers and all the infrastructure that enables warfare.
    Does Radiant emerge here because Notum addressed her as Radiant Kholin, or because they're speaking of warfare which is one of Radiant’s areas of excellence? Some other reason? 
    It doesn't make sense to me why the honorspren who are willing to be bonded are passing to the physical realm here at Lasting Integrity when they could instead join the group about to return to Urithiru where most of the candidate squires are present. Why risk the extra time and distance on a journey through the physical realm where they might forget themselves? 
    Notum has decided to join the candidate spren. However, he loathes the idea of bonding with a human. Does that mean we'll get a singer windrunner, or rather a listener windrunner, from Venli’s people? Oh, looks like Shallan has talked him into staying at Lasting Integrity to argue the cause of cooperation, rather than pursuing a bond he doesn't want. 
    Smart to leave an edgedancer as the designated ambassador. Their listening skills will be a boon for that task. I'm curious about Shallan’s choice to leave a lightweaver agent. What would she task them with in this case? And who would she pick? 
    Why can't the seon travel (well/quickly)? Is it because of the injury it sustained from being trapped inside Mraize’s radio box? Or is it something intrinsic to the seon’s nature?
    When Shallan says that she'll bring Mishram back to “The Bondsmith” it's interesting to me that she uses the singular. Well, maybe not. Navani’s bond is recent enough that even assuming they've heard about it from Wit, it won't be natural yet for her to automatically think of Navani as a second Bondsmith. I'm interested to see how having multiple active bondsmiths plays out in the leadership of the Radiant community. That is complicated by the fact that two of them are currently married, but the dynamics will be interesting anyway. 
    The creationspren looking like lights on the cognitive side feels off to me. Have we seen them before? I'm pretty sure we did at the lighthouse, but I don't recall their description. Little floating lights are less physical than I have come to expect of Spren in shadesmar. That they can apparently still change shape on this side, even if that’s not their usual behavior, is interesting to note as well. 
    Huh. According to Kelek, Shallan’s drawing ability where she captures an aspect of a person as they could be, their potential, is a result of drawing on Fortune. Presumably that's similar to what's done by feruchemists. That's something she did with the mercenaries way back in book two and has repeated several times, though I don't recall all the instances. While I'm interested in this, it also starts to set a concerning pattern. Kaladin has an extra connection to the Wind, a power and entity that were barely hinted at in the earlier books but now shows up to mark him as additionally super special. Shallan now has an extra connection to Fortune with the same result. Too many of these sorts of reveals will start to annoy me with questions like “why was this deliberately hidden in the world building up to this point?” So far it hasn’t reached problematic levels, and I do generally love when another layer of lore is folded back to reveal more beneath, but at some point you have to ask why certain aspects remained obscure despite all of the exploration that came before. 
    Whoowee that's a useful word. “Imbricated.” I like it. Presumably that's the same effect that occurs between twinborn with paired metal abilities on Scadrial: there's two separate abilities and then the resonance that results from their interaction. In that case Shallan’s bonding of two spren creates an extra affinity through the overlap of those bonds. It makes me wonder if we'll see multiple bonds to disparate spring types in the future back five books.
    The face she's drawing is Mishram. I had thought that she got different faces on different days, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Neat that she has some sort of guide to or understanding of the spiritual realm. That will become essential as she continues her quest to find the unmade. 
    It’s possible that this is because both her bonds are to the same type of spren. Rather than imbrication giving her an extra power, as one might expect from the interaction of distinct power sets, her dual cryptic bonds give her a deeper connection to the spiritual realm. 
    Kelek suggests that Shallan talk to Wit, who he names as Midius, because he's an expert in drawing on Fortune–which I now recall is the same force that tells Wit where and when he's supposed to be for narrative significance. Also, the archaic word fantdodic is an interesting one. Not one I've encountered before, but the dictionary confirms it's real and archaic in English. This lends some verisimilitude to the skillful translation of rosharan languages.
    Shiosak is an interesting name, I wonder where it's from? Oh he's Veden. Good reminder that the squires are being drawn from across the allied nations at the tower.
    Haha, Adolin is making them carry Gallant all the way to Urithiru.
     
  22. ccstat

    Chapter 6

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
     
    Title: Nobility 
    Probably a reference to Kaladin’s respect for Dalinar and possibly Navani.
    Icon: Ishar 
    Because that's his task, and also possibly for Dalinar's bondsmithliness. Oh and maybe Navani's too 
    Epigraph: Okay, this is starting to sound like it's Jasnah speaking. She's doing her historian veristitalian thing by tracking down primary sources. Presumably Kaladin’s mission will result in what she refers to here as the “cleansing of Shinovar,” which given that this whole epigraph text is about the Wind means that both Kaladin and the Wind will be involved in it directly. My presumption is that the cleansing is another exorcism of an unmade, whichever one has taken up residence there. However, the title Wind and Truth makes me think there could well be some cleansing of the stone shamans to correct malicious falsehoods in their teachings. The use of cleansing in that sense is very concerning because it brings to mind real-world genocidal language. Also importantly, this text is being written at a time when the Wind and the heralds have both vanished. A previous epigraph noted the Wind's departure, but the loss of all of the heralds is a big surprise. How and why that will occur will be a big question through to the climax of the book, I expect. We know that at least Ash and Taln are going to be part of the back five, possibly as viewpoint characters, which means that any vanishing will be strictly temporary at least for some of the individuals. 
    Kaladin is not happy about Szeth being a traveling companion. I'm not sure what he expected maybe it's readership bias with having extra information, but he's the natural person to send as the only person that they have access to who has first hand understanding of Shinovar. 
    Uh, yep, Szeth is speaking of “cleansing evil” in Shinivar. With Nightblood at his side that is a very concerning turn of phrase and makes me get ominous shivers for whatever coming event was referenced in the epigraph. 
    This is Szeth’s fourth ideal quest on his skybreaker journey, and apparently he wanted to go alone. He is not happy about Kaladin being a traveling companion. 
    And Kaladin just twigged to the fact that he's being sent as Szeth's therapist / attending physician. Not only does he have to try to heal Ishar, which Wit told him wasn't possible, he now has a second patient in Szeth, who's got a very enabling friend in sword-nimi. 
    Just a friendly reminder that Szeth is super cray cray. I had honestly forgotten about the voices still being part of his psyche at this point. They've been lessening slightly since Edgedancer I believe, though I do need to take another look at it, but obviously the voices haven't disappeared. 
    They got the climate controls up and working again all throughout the tower thanks to Navani. Aww, Syll says that Kaladin is her home. That's very sweet. 
    Interesting to note that the climate effects don't have a sharp cutoff between the Tower and the surroundings, but rather a gradual transition. 
    Fascinating that the human body can't hold Towerlight except in close proximity to the tower itself. I wonder why that's different from stormlight and whether warlight would be the same 
    He's apparently been adjusting the cabin pressure automatically when he flies, as part of his surgebinding abilities related to pressure and air. He's trying to be more deliberate in using and controlling that part of his power. There are definitely martial applications for that, not to mention medical ones that could come in very convenient for use in his hands as a surgeon going forward. Magical hyperbaric chamber anyone? 
    Woah, this is huge. Dalinar is questioning the wisdom of autocracy. Jasnah’s ideas truly are infectious “ like a cremling wintering in the heart of a plant”
    In the last book Dalinar was a committed tyrant. This openness to having the fate of the world decided not by him or another single monarch is a stark departure from his long-held beliefs. 

    Nice to see Kaladin being open with Dalinar about everything Wit told him and what he's experiencing with the Wind. It speaks to a high degree of trust between the two of them that is promising, especially given the genre’s tendency to rely on hidden knowledge and secrets among teammates for plot-driving misunderstandings. 
    A great vote of confidence for Dalinar to say he can count on Kaladin for both nuance and strong decision making. You go Dadlinar! 
    I like that Syl was the one to speak up and accept the mission. Especially given how daunted Kaladin felt. 
    I don't remember which cloak Kaladin is talking about here, though it sounds like a significant moment after he became Dalinar’s bodyguard. However, the idea of House Stormblessed being a new institution as part of the light-eyed power structure forced me to double take. It's got to be throwing Kaladin for an even bigger loop. 
    Is Dalinar about to adopt Kaladin? Shallan’s musings on the topic in the previous chapter in context of her marriage to Adolin were very sweet in that her assumption of the Kholin name was an indicator of her feeling wanted by a family for the first time. That's not the case with Kaladin, but Shallan’s experience does indicate that inheritance and family lines are something Dalinar is thinking about. 
    I hadn't realized that Renarin and Adolin had made such categorical refusals. Interesting distinction that Jasnah is only queen of Alethkar.. Dalinar is looking for an heir to the throne of the tower. 
    Dalinar: “Renarin saw the future and noped right out of the kingship. So there's an open position for you that's definitely not burdened with any red flags. Probably no drawbacks at all, despite the precogs reacting with previously strong aversion.”
    There's the title drop. Nobility, as in that thing Kaladin hates but is being elevated to anyway to become the heir apparent to Urithiru and leadership of the Knights Radiant.
    Dami is someone we've never seen onscreen before, I'm pretty certain. A stoneward from Rira, who is apparently now the third person to reach the fourth ideal.  Apparently a good dude, to be next in line after Kaladin.
    Kal says no, Dalinar says “sure, that's fine, but let's not make that choice official yet. Think about it until you get back.” Because he knows how this goes. 
     
  23. ccstat

    Chapter 4

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Title: Listening
    Either Edgedancers or actual Listeners make sense here, but my actual prediction is to do with Navani listening to the Sibling and working to accommodate them.
    Icons: Jester
    Worldhoppers in the house. This is most commonly Wit, but my prediction/hope is that this is going to be a surprise appearance by Zahel, since the prologue thrust his importance in our faces.
    Epigraph: “I have read...” means this isn’t Kaladin. If they’re Vorin it’s probably a woman, and if not then we don’t have many candidates that we’ve already met. As for the claim that the Wind often spoke to human and singer alike… where are you getting these records, lady? From the historical vaults in Urithiru, possibly, or maybe out in Shinovar. Otherwise that’s a history that hasn’t been known for a long time. The author suggests that the Wind stopped talking because she was feared, or because people worshipped the Storm instead. Note the capitalization. Is this referring to the Stormfather, a figure of worship across much of Roshar? That would lend credence to the idea that the Wind is some counterpart to him. But if it’s not him, then there’s another entity associated with Storms that we have yet to meet, and I feel like piling in more (previously unknown) super-powerful spren is going to strain credulity sooner than later.

    His memory of nearly falling to his hate after Teft died is painful enough to draw actual painspren. Ick.
    All the spren are attracted to the Sibling’s bond with Navani. Is it the Towerlight itself seeping through? Or does something else draw them?
    It’s Wit, not Zahel. And he’s…reading a romance novel? I mean, no judgement here, but seems an odd choice when he’s on a close deadline.
    Wit’s insistence on teaching Kaladin to play the flute (a wind instrument) when the Wind is speaking to him smacks of a very convenient skill. If this is how he ends up communing with his new elemental friend, I hope it’s cool enough to overcome how silly and contrived the idea feels at the moment.
    Navani gifting clock after clock to Dalinar in hopes of making him keep to a schedule is funny to me. Good luck reining him in, Your Highness.
    Why did Kaladin’s armor spren follow the Aon out of the room when Wit directed it? Were they following his instructions or just following a nearby “spren” of interest?
    I was about to say that rhythms must exist cosmere-wide, but this exchange actually doesn’t do anything to claim that any originate outside the Rosharan system, only that they can propagate that far. I would suppose them to be a universal phenomenon, but the fact that they haven’t appeared in any other magic systems (think aviar, kandra, aons, all of which are invested beings who ought to be sensitive to such things) suggests pretty strongly that they are local.
    It’s also interesting that the tones of the gods were used in the music, going back to Navani’s harmonization practice with Raboniel in the last book. I expect music could be really interesting (though also more complicated) when you live on a planet where certain notes and rhythms have supernatural significance and magical effects when they resonate through the world.
    Oh, Wit’s actually going to talk directly about the Wind. Wasn’t expecting him to be direct about this. The Wind is an ancient spren from before the shattering. Apparently the Nightwatcher is too, which is a surprise. I thought “Old Magic” was just talking about something obscure, not something actually older than the gods invested here. I was nearly positive that Nightwatcher was a creation of Cultivation, not an ancient spren that had been nurtured into her current form as Wit just informed us. 
    Wit claims that the music is just for Kaladin’s own appreciation and expression of art. That can be true while also helping him to listen better to the Wind, though.
    Oh, he even says why it’s important a few lines later:
    Wit is feeling pessimistic about his chances to survive? His memory of the confrontation with Odium still has him thinking he manipulated Rayse, so i’m not sure why he thinks things aren’t going to plan.
    Oh, he figured out that something went wrong, but has no idea what it was. 
    Wit is unexpectedly irate about the Passions. I mean, I agree with what he’s saying, even if that feels reductionist toward the actual Thaylen religion that has had thousands of years to grow out of the teachings Odium first gave. And yet, he’s usually so irreverent about things that it seems odd for this topic to trigger his anger so powerfully. The quickness with which he transitions from angerspren to gloryspren reminds me that he just said he’s capable with a lie. His outrage and (ironically) passion feel manufactured.
    He’s citing Sazed now, with great respect. I approve, except for “Hope I get to meet him someday.” Sir, you spent years on Scadrial hiding from the man. Those are not the actions of someone hoping to meet their host.
    We knew that Kal was revolutionizing mental healthcare, but Wit is claiming he’s actually inventing therapy for the first time on Roshar. I find that hard to believe unless you are defining therapy very narrowly.
    According to Wit, Ishar won’t be able to help with the Champion contest, and Kaladin won’t be coming back in time to help either, though his mission is still important.
    Haha! Wit was making Dalinar wait, not the other way around. 
     
  24. ccstat

    Chapter 3

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Title: The Cost of Heroism
    Combined with the icon of Kelek and that this is a Shallan chapter, I assume we’re getting a conversation with Restares.
    Icon: Kelek
    Epigraph: Okay, this one is pretty informative. The epigraphs are speaking of very recent events (Taravangian’s displacement of Rayse as Odium’s vessel) so the text must be a new work. THe Wind is apparently going to vanish at some point, which is a worrying bit of foreshadowing. SHe also is given feminine pronouns. Apparently she was somewhat impotent before and only regained her voice when the change in vessel occurred. The author (Kal?) speculates that the perspective of people considering the wind less of an enemy could have also accounted for the change, which strongly points at the Wind being a spren of some sort. Unmade? Something like Cusicesh? Hard to guess.
    Pattern is surprised that Shallan’s memories didn’t come back all at once, and he’s confused about Veil’s gone but not gone status. Apparently Shallan still hasn’t figured it all out either, but she’s got a sense for it. Veil is taking a backseat, still distinct as a viewpoint but not one who “fronts” in this plurality any more. I hesitate to say that this is hewing closer to real-world DID, because I’m not an expert there, but that’s the general gist I’m getting. Obviously Radiant is still a separate aspect with all the magical effects that implies. 
    As usual, I’m really invested in Shallan’s mental landscape.
    Her healing breakthrough is apparently “I deserve understanding, not hatred,” which is a huge shift in mentality. I hope that she really does accept that deep down. In the last chapter she was expecting hatred from Testament. Hopefully the lack of condemnation there will help Shallan internalize the idea.
    The way Pattern savors the concept of human squishiness in body, mind, memory, and ideas, reminds me how much he loves lies. Is it the mutability he is attracted to? The potential for counterfactuals and contradictions? Or something else?
    The Davar family is a real mess, isn’t it. It’s tempting to blame the competing agendas of the Sons of Honor and Ghostbloods and whoever else had an interest in things, but yikes. There were problems there outside of secret societies.
    Shallan gives us a good high-level summary here: Mom and mystery man respond to her bonding of Testament with attempted murder, Shallan protects herself with Testament blade. In trauma she wrenches that bond and convinces herself it was a normal blade, burying her memories of her friend. She “retrieves” the Testament blade from Daddy Davar’s safe before searching out Jasnah.
    Ah, they’re talking to Wit, not to the Aon itself. Should have guessed that. Adolin is convinced Dalinar will be the champion, which is expected but we do have ten days for things to get complicated. The contest will take place at Urithiru, so the cover art is almost certainly of the tower. Already the most likely, but now it’s practically confirmed. And so Shallan and Adolin are getting picked up for a flight back to Urithiru. I stupidly forgot that was an option here in Shadesmar. Somehow I was expecting a trek. Especially since the map of their path in the previous book had them continuing south after Lasting Integrity. Maybe that was just the rest of the party that weren’t granted admittance?
    This conversation about the Ghostbloods and their expected reprisals against Shallan is a good opportunity to express my lingering bafflement about the group. The Scadrian chapter we met in Lost Metal operated very differently than Mraize and Iyatil have been running the Rosharan cell. Some of that can be blamed on the person they were recruiting: Marasi required a soft touch while Shallan is more of a secrets person so the carrot-and-stick approach was warranted. Part of it can also be attributed to the different location. Their stated mission is the protection of Scadrial, so it’s natural they would act differently on their home soil compared to behind enemy lines. However, the blackmail business Mraize has doing to recruit Shallan is still very opposed to the “we’re a crew, and crew trust each other” ethos that Kelsier tried to preach. Is Iyatil acting outside his preferred rules of engagement, or is the “crew” on war footing so their usual standards don’t apply? 
    Shallan talks to Wit about Formless and asks for advice! That show of trust says a lot. Sure, she gets some standard platitudes about heroism and choices, which I would probably appreciate more if they didn’t sound rather cliche, but the important thing to me here is that she feels safe with Adolin, Wit, Pattern and Maya.
    Shallan is expecting to kill Mraize, and she’s okay with that, but she’s worried about how that will continue the pattern of killing her parents and mentor figures. 
    Kelek, alone among the heralds, was involved in the planning and execution of the plan to capture Ba-Ado-Mishram. Supposedly he’s the only one alive who knows the details. Fortunately, Adolin is a convincing negotiator, and he’s telling us now. They made a flawless heliodor for the task. Heliodor is the gem associated with Ishar, patron of bondsmiths. Was it heliodor because of the connection to bonds? Because that’s the gap with no Voidbinding parallel? Could any polestone have worked? 
    The prison gem is hidden in the Spiritual Realm? How did Melishi do that? I thought there were no locations there.
    Maya is talking! A lot! In regular conversations, even. Her recovery is going much better than I expected. Yay!
    Ah, so the Spiritual Realm’s weirdness full of distorted time and space was the point. In a place where causality and distance are fractured, navigating and finding something is a very daunting task. 
    They think Mishram’s captivity is the cause of deadeyes? Without that, maybe the recreance would have been nonlethally painful? Huh. We obviously need to learn more about her and how she Connected to Roshar. I don’t buy that it’s a consequence of Honor’s death, because that should have been well after the False Desolation. The timeline doesn’t match up for that.
    It does bring up the possibility of vastly simplifying the recovery of the dead spren. Going Adolin’s route was never feasible at scale. If we can lower the barrier to revival, that’s worth doing for its own sake.
     
  25. ccstat

    Chapter 2

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Title: Taking the Next Step
    Lots of things this could mean, I don’t have a good guess for which one it’s suggesting for this chapter
    Icon: Vedel
    Can I hope this means Lift will show up? Alternatively this could be about the attribute of healing, and Kal is going to start mending things more with Lirin and continue improving his mental health.
    Epigraph: Okay, the Wind is getting capital letters, and someone knows it personally. Pretty blatant after it spoke to Kaladin last chapter that this is going to be Important, and makes me think that the Wind and Truth title has a whole lot more significance that I initially gave it. While it could happen, I really don’t see Kaladin dictating a memoir, so for now I’m going to presume this is by someone else who also was chosen by the Wind. Whatever that actually means.

    Hm. Kaladin draws in and uses Towerlight for his surgebinding, and that light is constantly generated here in the tower. Very convenient for the defending forces, I’d say. Not a surprise that its character and intent results in a different feeling than stormlight. I expect this will be a good thing for his mental state.
    I do think it’s slightly odd that everything still runs on Towerlight with no involvement of Warlight after the near-complete corruption of the Sibling and all of Navani’s investigations. I buy it, but I’d have expected some lasting consequences.
    Kaladin being easily startled in his PTSD makes a lot of sense, but it does make me wonder if premodern warfare that doesn’t involve firearms or explosions would instill the same reaction to loud noises as we see in soldiers today. Just an idle thought.
    Nice, the colors are a code to show that she’s visible to everyone else. Good signal.
    And he has an internal Teft to grumble at him and give good advice. The real Teft would be glad of that.
    I suspect Oroden’s speech is just being represented as childish, but it is potentially revealing of the Alethi language. Kaladin became GaGadin, Syl come spin became Fyl come Fin.
    K→G is more obvious a step than L→G, though the tendency toward repeated sounds makes sense. S→F is not a shift I’d have expected. I can see it, but it’s a further stretch than I’d have thought. We know that Kh, J, and several other consonants are pronounced in ways that don’t match modern English. Maybe their S is breathier than I thought?
    Laughterspren. Have we seen those before? They look like “silvery minnows.” And the Tower’s revival is attracting spren of all kinds.Neat.
    “You are what I need” says the Wind. 
    The blocks are floating for longer, too. Kaladin says it’s because the whole city is infused, so it makes sense that there would be less leakage from an infused item if the “air pressure” of investiture around it is high as well.
    Syl has adopted a glove on her safehand.
    Dungspren. Yes, that’s something a little kid would find interesting or funny, but do they actually exist? Syl doesn’t even answer the question. I’m assuming they don’t but maybe we’ll never know.
    Lirin and Hesina are working to revamp medical doctrine for Dalinar’s entire fighting force. That’s a step up in responsibility.
    Syl’s choice to be human-sized is an extra effort for her, in order to be treated more like a person, to be ignored less and respected more. Understandable, and something that’s probably important. Don’t really have much to unpack about it, though.
    The Wind is asking him to come find it wherever Dalinar is sending him, which is Shinovar. We know there’s an unmade there. What else might we find? 
    Aw, Lirin gives Kal a hug, and they’re surrounded by joyspren. Very sweet.
     
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