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ccstat

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  1. ccstat

    Chapter 1

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Title: Unfamiliar Ground
    Possibly speaking about the new truce between Kaladin and the listeners under Leshwi and Venli?
    Icons: Pali
    Dare I hope for this to refer to Rlain’s new Truthwatcher status?
    Epigraph: Okay, first up we have the in-world book being titled Knights of Wind and Truth, but the Stormlight book is just the second half of that? I’m not complaining, but wasn’t the point to keep the palindromic initials? Why remove the K? As for the content, no real clues about the author. I presume for the moment that this is a recent book, similar to Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, and thus that the speaker is one of the new Radiants talking about the spren watching them. This is obviously a big assumption, but if it’s the case then I am very curious about the meaning behind the book’s title. Are they drawing a distinction between the Knights Radiant who followed the old pattern and the newer Knights of Truth that they want to promote? There’s an outside chance that this is authored by this book’s focus character Szeth, which… I dunno. These epigraphs are always a bit of a guessing game, and my track record is not great.
     
    And of course his first thought to being in a decent mood is that he doesn’t deserve to feel good after all the suffering in the tower that he failed to prevent. Hero/martyr complex is strong with this one.
    Wait a second. Kaladin already knows about the 10-day deadline? I guess the spanreeds are back to normal functionality. I wasn’t banking on instantaneous communication being available yet.
    Kaladin has already recused himself from the contest of champions. Good ground state to start with. There’s ten whole days for that decision to be tested, but I like his choice to relinquish responsibility.
    Kal in civilian clothes? That will be a switch. Just wait til Adolin gets back and can properly dress and accessorize this man. Oh, Kaladin prefers the uniform. Big surprise, that.
    Ha! Leyten keeps a whole rack of uniforms to replace Kaladin’s ruined ones since he gets in so many fights. That’s precious.
    A ten-hour lashing? Impressive. How much of that is due to the Sibling’s new bond and how much to the Fourth Ideal?
    Syl is getting into the fashion adventure too, now with more colors! She’s spending a lot more time at human size, which is an adjustment to my mental image. It also strikes me, after reading Dawnshard, just how much her choice to usually adopt a human form may be out of the norm. The Lopen is likely at the other end of the spectrum, but his spren Rua was constantly in the form of non-human creatures or inanimate objects, and rarely kept the same shape for long. Rua was also largely nonverbal. It was a good contrast, and a reminder now that Syl might be different from her people in a number of ways.
    Hm. Syl once managed to get room-sized, but that was her limit. Interesting data point.
    Kal is grinning? What is going on? It’s the end times! (Oh wait, it is. That joke fell flat.)
    That’s a good point, that if Dalinar joins Odium a lot of Radiants and other people are likely to follow him. I hadn’t considered that possible consequence.
    You tell him, Syl!
    Syl lost me with her “I’ll make silly faces at you” threat, but the “highbrow comedy” pun won me right back.
    His armor is apparently made of the same windspren every time, and they hang out near him. That makes sense, but I had kind of assumed it was more fluid than that. I’m even more surprised that the armor spren are described as laughing. Is it actually audible to him? Would it be to others?
    And the wind is still moving without them present? Is that just him having an effect? Uh, now the wind is talking to him? That’s weird. Who is this voice? Gut reaction is to say Tien, but that can’t be right, even with the whole vision and wooden horse thing from the end of the last book. The wind was pursuing Kaladin even as a child before any of the inciting incidents.
    And we’re being told to expect “the worst storm,” which is pretty ominous given that we already have a highstorm-everstorm clash to compare it to.

    I’ll also note that Syl is apparently dancing to one of the rhythms that the singers attune. She hasn’t shown an awareness or sensitivity to them in the past. Is that just a lack of it being shown, or has the strengthened bond brought her more in tune with them somehow?
    .
    . . .
    Oh, we get a Shallan perspective in this chapter, too. Unexpected.
    I can’t decide if this counts as superhero brooding. She’s standing on the top of a tower looking out across the landscape while thinking about her tragic backstory and her commitment to move forward and remake herself. It’s practically a Batman scene… except that the tone doesn’t match. It’s the otherworldly vista of Shadesmar and the esher-like architecture of Lasting Integrity below her, and this feels like a reflective, restful  moment rather than an angsty one. I’m going to go with “not brooding.”
    She’s hanging out with Testament and Pattern together. Glad we’re following up on Testament, even if I’d forgotten that was the deadeye’s name.
    Pattern’s head “pulsed to a vibrant rhythm.” So soon after Syl showed her resonance with the rhythms, this sticks out. Has the movement of Pattern’s fractal lines ever been described as rhythmic or pulsing before? It’s in constant motion, but I don’t recall any time where a rhythm was noticed.
    Testament is physically weak, in contrast to Maya who was mentally distant. “Spren broke in different ways, it appeared. Just like people.”
    Pattern appreciating the little things in life.
    Shallan’s bond with Testament is damaged but not severed. No one knows if it can be healed because it is unprecedented. This is where the unfamiliar ground chapter title comes in, which was probably a better choice than “These numbers are perplexing…strangely irrational, in a sequence I do not understand.” As idioms go, that one is a bit awkward.
    A good reminder that the ancient radiants and their spren didn’t expect the Recreance to be lethal. The deadeye thing was a surprise to everyone.
    Shallan committing to heal Testament and to remember all the suppressed memories is sweet. I’m hoping for some clear answers about her past, and success in reviving her first friend.
  2. ccstat

    Shallan's Sketchbook - Part I

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Looks like we’re getting Kaladin and Shallan to start with. Not gonna lie, I’m more excited for seeing Navani in Kaladin’s sections than for the man himself. On the other hand, I am stoked to find out what’s going on with Shallan’s mental balance and with Maya.

    Shallan’s Sketchbook Part I
    And we get art right away! This feels less detailed than usual. A more hurried sketch? Or an effect of her merger with Veil? Probably just the first, but I’m madly speculating over here.
    It’s a madra. Mandra? Not sure I recall the correct spelling. It’s bound to come up. 
    Such a weird physiology for this creature. Spren don’t have to follow the usual rules us physical beings do, of course. It’s nice to have an excuse for something truly fantastical. 
    Very fun that the mandra is posing for Shallan to draw it.
    I don’t know what the perfect moment is. Maybe just the artful pose of the two creatures? Not likely. It’s more to be something between her and Adolin.
    That grumpy face in the bottom is almost certainly an honorspren from Lasting Integrity, but I couldn’t give them a name. Maybe they’ll get a mention once we get to Shallan’s perspective. That won’t be for at least a chapter though, since the icon of Chapter 1 looks to be Kaladin.
     
    This is a short entry with not much to analyze about the art, but I'll go ahead and post it separately so that the art can keep its own sections.
  3. ccstat

    Prologue

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
     
    Alright, we’re into the book proper, now. Time for our final look at Gavilar’s final day, this time from the perspective of the man himself. It’s shocking to me how many secrets are left to reveal about the night in question after seeing so many different elements of the assassination and its participants. How much did Gavilar actually know, and what was he truly working toward? (The Sons of Honor still make very little sense to me, from the conflicting information we’ve gotten across these books.) What was the nature of his cooperation with the heralds, and why were so many of them present that night? What was up with his anti-light sphere?
    Honestly, my opinion of Gavilar is not positive in hardly any respect, and I totally judge the Stormfather for almost choosing him. I suspect that this prologue is going to try to make him sympathetic, but I gotta say, that’s going to be an uphill battle.
    Jumping into it, then:
     
    Title: To Live
    Yeah, love the irony. Off to a great start here.
    Icons: Jes
    Presumably a reference to the Stormfather and to Gavilar’s role as a leader, but Jezrien was also there that night and Szeth was using his blade, so there’s all sorts of reasons to put his icon at the top here.
     
    The Words will grant immortality, huh? You wanna check your notes on that? I’mma go out on a limb and suggest that you may have misinterpreted something from your visions.
    In fairness, if you see Aharietiam and then the Stormfather says he’s “seeking a new champion” it’s not a huge surprise that Gavilar would assume he’s talking about getting a new Herald rather than just a new Radiant. Arrogant in the extreme, but Gavilar isn’t really known for his humility.
    Yes, Gavilar, throwing oaths at the wall to see if they stick is the right way to interact with a being of Honor. (eyeroll) Why did Stormfather bother with this piece of work? I have a hard time believing he’s the one who resonated most with Tanavast’s intent. 
    Gavilar secretly learning to read to heretically pursue mysteries is a surprise, but it shouldn’t be. More surprising is that he latched onto Nohadon’s work. Well, maybe not. With a title that screams “How to be a King and conquer the world,” it’s no wonder he chose it as his handbook.
    Gavilar casually tossing the honorblades around like junk in the vision is a great image, and a nice way to show his attitude. Interesting that Chana’s sword matches the artistic depiction with the bifurcated tuning fork blade.
    Oh, so he’s refrained from asking any of the important clarifying questions because they are too irreverent and he’s worried they’ll disqualify him. Makes sense, even if the perpetuated misunderstandings feel ridiculously large to have lasted as long as they seem to have done.
     
    Interesting. In order to discover the Words, he wants to find Urithiru, so he looks for an Oathgate, which takes him to the shattered plains. It is exactly backwards compared to what our protagonists have done: Kaladin and Dalinar have made their Words into a journey, taking them to all of those places, while to Gavilar the Words were the destination to which he could not find the path. A very neat and rather meta way to yet again present the fundamental premise of the series.
    Oh, Stormfather outright says “you’re making too many assumptions. I never said you’d get to be a herald.” Not that it dissuades Gavilar from his belief.
    Gavilar guesses and quotes a passage with essentially the same meaning as the first oath, but it doesn’t count. Good to know that just stumbling on the right ideal isn’t sufficient. I mean, we knew that, but I was kinda worried about how Gavilar was going about it.
     
    Gavilar’s treatment of Dalinar is so, so scummy. We already saw how his marriage to Navani was abusive, but Dalinar’s devotion to his brother led me to think that there was some real affection and camaraderie there. Maybe there was, at one point, but this interaction makes me doubt that. Gavilar is a manipulator, first to last.
    Interesting that Dalinar claims to feel a kinship with the parshendi. What is he sensing in these early days?
    Gavilar is expecting his meeting with Restares, but is also in contact with Thaidakar? He continues to be more well informed than I expect. I keep thinking that his misunderstandings mean he’s missing big pieces of the picture and therefore that he’s some sort of patsy for the other figures of the cosmere, but he’s definitely trying to wheedle everything he can out of the people around him.
    Ooo, the “Follow the Codes” line being a manipulation to get Dalinar drunk? Did not expect that at all. Dalinar’s guilt later is all the more tragic.
    Did we know that Tearim was a member of the Sons of Honor? I don’t think so, but I could well have just forgotten. Ah, and Gavilar claims to have outgrown the Sons’ plans. This is helpful in that it clarifies Gavilar was explicitly working at cross purposes with them, presumably without their knowledge. It also says that the organization likely predated him by quite a time span.
    Even back then Stormfather saw the potential in Dalinar. So why is he slumming about with Gavilar?
     
    Ooo, Thaidakar is in the house. I didn’t think he’d been present. “Always another secret” indeed. I can’t wait to find out if he played a role in setting up the assassination.
    Huh. So the Ghostbloods were after Kelek specifically for all this time. Why him, out of all the heralds?
    My takeaway here is that the Ghostbloods were trying to make the new Desolation more predictable so they could use it for their purposes, not just that they were trying to help it along. 
    I will say that speaking by Aon radio is a pretty spooky trick when the person you’re calling doesn’t know how it works. It does make sense now how Kel could get here when he’s bound to Scadrial: he didn’t, he just arranged for a video chat.
     
    Interesting ordering of the names there: “Me, Ialai, Navani, and Torol.” Tell me, Gavilar, how close were you with Ialai, hm?
     
    How much does he actually know about the mechanics of the heralds and desolations? You know what, this actually makes a ton of sense now. Of course he’s encouraging people to find ways to kickstart the desolations. The more often those happen, the less time he has to spend on Braize in time out. To get the most out of immortality you just need to plunge the planet into constant warfare. Hardly even an inconvenience from an Alethi king’s perspective, especially one who despises other people.
     
    Hm. Gavilar had met with Restares before, but had never spoken to Nale and didn’t know who he was. Does he even know for sure that Restares is Kelek?
    “The newest incarnation of the Sons of Honor.” Okay, maybe I’m wrong. If Gavilar has known multiple iterations of the group, he’s presumably also partly behind it. My earlier conclusion about it predating him would be wrong.
    Ah, nope. Restares is in charge of the Sons of Honor, and until this moment Gavilar hasn’t considered him an important individual. Weird. I thought for sure he was aware.
    Important clarification! Restares founded the Sons of Honor to bring back the behaviors of the Knights Radiant, not their powers. He specifically does not want the powers to return because they could cause another Return. Obviously the group’s aims become confused thanks to Gavilar (and presumably others) but this starting point is a key bit of info.
    Oh, I see. Kelek knows where Mishram is, and she’s Kelsier’s true target. Glad to know that, finally. We’ve had a whole lot of smoke and mirrors obscuring that goal. Seems like Kelek is also one to be easily intimidated into revealing the secret if they get a chance to question him.
    Gavilar has a “secret scholar” from another world. This is obviously Zahel (unless there’s a sneaky bait and switch happening, which I don’t expect) but it’s a twist because I did not expect Gavilar to know of his nature, nor did I think Zahel would help with this project. He seems so placidly inactive in the background, supposedly running from his past. Is he actually working towards a goal here on Roshar? Is he yet another secret faction moving in the shadows?!
    Hm. Gavilar believes Restares is pretending to be a herald, and thus that Nale is also pretending. 
    Yes, I’ll bet Thaidakar is interested in how to transport herald-like beings between planets. Interesting that Gavilar is working on this project for both Restares and Kelsier without cottoning on to their purpose.
     
    The connection to the Stormfather is strong and has progressed a long way if he’s forming avatars to speak to Gavilar willy nilly.
    You make it sound like this was an attempted usurpation. Restares’ phrasing was similar. Is this misleading, or was our previous understanding of the False Desolation incorrect? I had thought that she was trying to perpetuate Odium’s goals in a new way, not assume (part of) his mantle.
    Gavilar got his new heating fabrial from “the scholar Rushur Kris”. Surely Khriss isn’t his secret scholar from another world. I don’t doubt that she’s here, but I still think he was referring to Zahel earlier. Checked the wording, and yes, the scholar is referred to as a man from another world. Not Khriss.
    What do you mean “if that conniving Axindweth eluded his grasp…” I thought that if anyone was working hand-in-glove with Gavilar it would be the woman who delivered a voidspren to Venli. I guess not. More cross currents and competing interests. 
    Yep, it’s Zahel, and Gavilar somehow knows him as Vasher. Not only that, but he’s created anti-Voidlight. Definite confirmation that the man is working on his own agenda here. That would have been enough on its own, but the fact that he hasn’t done anything with it in the last seven years? That Navani had to do an extended team-up episode with Raboniel to rediscover this thing that Vasher can apparently do without any of the tools Navani developed? Yeah, he’s got to have a good reason for keeping that to himself after he’d already shared it with Gavilar. Something is really screwy here.
     
    Imagine that. A woman actually contributing something of value. Preposterous. Surely it’s a one-off and you lose nothing by cutting her out of your life.
     
    Uhuh. I don’t buy that Gavilar was anywhere close to the Words. That is not the same Intent. Sorry Stormfather, you’ve got a broken Radiant-chooser.
     
    Vargo! And Taravangian enters the stage. I would not have thought that Mr. T was only introduced to Gavilar in these final hours. Bizarre. I got the impression they’d interacted a whole lot more than that. Fascinating that he approached Gavilar by way of the Sons of Honor, introduced through Amaram, no less.
    Taravangian, “a man of little consequence or aptitude.” I love how terrible Gavilar is at judging people. We obviously have the benefit of hindsight, but over and over again he refuses to see anyone’s abilities or strengths. Dalinar, Navani, Restares, the Stormfather himself, and now Taravangian. It’s a pattern of incredible hubris, and each new scene makes me more glad that Gavilar doesn’t survive to sunrise to poison the rest of the cast with his self-centered manipulations.
    Amaram’s apparent desire to control the singers lends a smidgen of weight to his possession by Yelig-nar in Oathbringer. If we’d gotten this bit of the storyline ahead of time and seen it developed more, I wouldn’t have been nearly as annoyed at that plot element.
    Amaram’s interest in Jasnah is, at least according to Gavilar, purely down to her status as heir (or rather future wife to the heir) to the throne. I can’t decide if that’s Gavilar projecting a thirst for power onto Meridas or if his advances were really as one dimensional as that.
    Gavilar is expecting “The Everstorm. The Night of Sorrows.” Seems like the Stormfather has been quite a bit more forthcoming to him than to Dalinar.
    Ooo, spooky. Those were the words of Vargo’s mother’s death rattle. Precogs are freaky, I tell you what. It’s becoming harder and harder to tease apart whose hand is moving the pieces. Cultivation, Moelach, Odium, Stormfather, all pushing over dominoes. 
     
    Wow. That’s sure a phrase to inspire the future author of the Diagram…and the future Odium. Gavilar is leaving a legacy after all, even if few will attribute much of it to him.
     
    And wonder of wonders, here we have an honest conversation between Gavilar and Stormfather. 
    Stormfather doesn’t regret choosing Gavilar, but thinks he made mistakes in how he approached the potential champion. Possible, but I still think the initial choice was weird.
    Gavilar freely admits to his plan to let the Desolations continue nonstop so he doesn’t have to spend any time on Braize. Who needs to honor what the Oathpact was for? Just use the effects for your own benefit. And he easily explains his Alethi glorification of war. No reason to stop one, ever.
    Stormfather about to explain that it’s the Intent that’s missing, not the Words, but he’s interrupted by Szeth.
    Wait, no. Not by Szeth. He’s somehow in pain. By the death of a Herald? Who?! How? I’m confused. My initial thought was that it was Taln’s breaking, but it wouldn’t take him literal years to reach Roshar again, and it wouldn’t be described as a death. Who could it have been? I thought we had confirmed sightings of all of the Heralds in the other books. If they died, they wouldn’t have been available for that without going to Braize and returning, which would have triggered the desolation. Unless by abandoning the Oathpact they are no longer bound?
    What is the Stormfather hiding? Most likely would be he’s hiding from the Heralds that they are no longer bound, if that’s true. Or he could be hiding the weakness of the Oathpact from the Fused/Unmade? Such a frustratingly vague statement!
    I love the first part of that simile, about mistaken assumptions being so far off from the hidden truths. It’s a good line by itself, and feels like something Brandon put in aimed at us fans. But then he loses me on the path bit. I’m not sure the cartography makes sense the way he’s said that.
     
    And suddenly the Stormfather shifts to his ALL CAPS voice to say he’s abandoning Gavilar to be assassinated. An interesting shift. You know, I don’t think Dalinar ever got the small italics version of a Stormfather conversation. It was ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME for him.
    Gavilar is stunned that Restares is really a herald, that spren can lie, that there are things he doesn’t know.
    Why would Thaidakar killing Gavilar be “too late.” Just because he warned Restares? There was nothing else that Gavilar was denying the Ghostbloods, as far as we know. 
    I like that he recognizes the Honorblade Szeth uses.
    Oh, he was trying to pass the sphere to the Stormfather, not to Szeth. That’s an unexpected misunderstanding. And Gavilar realizes how much he messed up, tries at the last moment to pass the Radiant candidacy to Dalinar. Stormfather is having none of it, though. “I’ll never trust your family again.”

     
    Well. That was indeed a jam-packed prologue full of reveals. I was expecting more about Liss and Aesudan, rather than a prolonged conversation with the Stormfather. I was surprised at how uninformed Gavilar was in some areas while having access to a lot of important information. At the end of the day, though, I’m primarily glad to finally have a better grasp on some of the undercurrents driving the Sons of Honor and the Ghostbloods.
  4. ccstat

    Endpages and Frontmatter

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
    Endpages
    Wait a minute. Wait just a minute! What the what?
    This is the Nightwatcher standing by Cultivation. This is not a herald, this is one of the gods. Presumably then we have another one on the front. Surely not Odium, that does not match his description. Is this honor? Is this Tanavast? Checking the illustration list, yes to both. Honor and Cultivation are accompanied here by Talenel and Battah. 
    Okay, if I’d taken a moment to think about it I would have remembered that we have had eight heralds already, so I might have expected the gods to accompany them in our portraiture, but somehow I completely forgot about that.
    There’s lots to say about each of these pictures, and I'm particularly excited about how much the nightwatcher resembles some of the fan art we saw after book 3. In fact, I'm going to start with Cultivation because that picture is the one I am most excited about. 
    Cultivation
    Obviously the first thing I do, after getting over my initial excitement, is to look for evidence of her draconic nature. I see suggestions of it in the form of the vines trailing behind her in a shape slightly reminiscent of a tale, as well as the way the mist from the night watcher is flanking her sides in the vague suggestion of wings. It’s subtle, but unless my my own wishful thinking is getting away from me, I believe the artist chose to represent hints of her true form in this depiction. 
    Had to quickly double check her name on the coppermind (thank you, arcanists, for the time machine feature!). The name we know for Cultivation’s vessel is Koravellium Avast, which I’ll shorten to Kora here. 
    Looking next at the environment surrounding Kora, there are life spren dotting the page and I love the glow that they provide along with a real sense of depth. The flower petals and vines and trees all show great affinity with her domain of cultivation and life. The backlight and halo effect push that traditional depiction of divinity, while at the same time she's very physically present. 
    Her stature is imposing while also being welcoming, in a way that she appears strong and maternal. Her hands seem to be in an act of either bestowal or creation but also offering welcome. The glowing green tinge in her eyes is eerie and contributes to the impression of otherworldliness. I like how physically real she seems with the teased hair and very human form, which contrasts prominently with the ethereal nature of the Nightwatcher in the foreground. 
    The Nightwatcher is very spooky and other, and remains imposing on her own. 
    Notably, Cultivation does not wear a glove to cover her safe hand. This is in direct contrast to Battah on the facing page. I will need to look at the previous artwork some of which depicted covered versus uncovered safe hands to possibly speculate about the origin of that tradition. I recall Chana did not wear one, but Vedel did. Looking again at the other female heralds, Pali and Ash both had their safehands obscured in their portraits wither with a glove or a sleeve. Looks like Chana is the exception for some reason, but not unique since Kora/Cultivation here is also not hewing to Vorin sensibilities.
    Battah
    Obviously the first thing to notice here is the string of four bird skulls pain from her belt sash. At first I was thinking the numerology matched, but no, Battah is associated with the number seven, not four. More importantly, why birds? We know that “chickens” are neither widespread nor numerous here on Roshar. As the patron of elsecallers, I wonder if images for imagery a flight and death are meaningful here. 
    The regal pose and then diadem on her forehead definitely evoke a sense of nobility. One hand is covered in accordance with Vorin sensibilities, and as mentioned earlier may help us speculate about the origins of that cultural tradition. The other hand holds a branch of leaves with perhaps soul casting implications? More obviously appropriate to the elsecallers, the stars in her dress and cape make me think of the beads in shadesmar and the potential for travel through the cognitive realm. 
    The moon behind her is large and prominent, I believe the purple one is Salas? Confirmation needed. I don't know what symbolic significance each moon has, but it is interesting that one of them would be associated with her particularly. Ah, yes I was right about the violet moon being Salas. Hard to believe I actually remembered that correctly. Salas is also the smallest of the moons, so the size here is even more exaggerated. Hm, I also just confirmed that the color associated with her symbol in the Double Eye chart and the 7th gas giant in the system chart are more of a turquoise hue, quite different from the violet moon behind her. The association with Salas is not a simple matter of color correspondence. (Her gem of zircon comes in many colors on earth, but presumably is also turquoise-ish in its polestone variety.)
    It appears she's standing on a liquid or sea. Is that intended to be the physical ocean? Or perhaps the bead ocean in the cognitive realm? Many questions. The clouds in the sky have a very physical-realm form, which limits how much cognitive symbolism should be assumed. 
    Taln
    Now this is a heroic pose. The burning sword, stalwart demeanor, and determined expression fit the patron of the Stonewards, as well as the man who withstood Damnation for a thousand years. He seems to be physically emerging from the rock behind him… or perhaps it is billowing smoke? It could well be either given the surges of cohesion and tension, though the more I look at it the more I’m inclined to go with smoke. The way the shadow creeps around his feet at the bottom gives it a particularly ominous feeling, and while the texture makes it look like smoke, it could also be striations of rock. 
    Those pillars behind him, however, are extremely disturbing. There are many bodies in apparent pain, symbolizing the torment of Braize–whether of the heralds themselves or of those they were forced to see tortured around them. Kaladin’s visions in Braize give just a few hints about what Damnation entailed. 
    I do think it's interesting that he has a scarf or tassel of some kind descending from his pauldrons. It has the glyph of stonewards printed upon it, just like the symbol in the stone step at his feet. It's a very visually striking accent to the armor that drives home this is a man of importance, not simply a warrior. 
    The embers dancing through the smoke around him are presumably the stoneward spren, though I don't remember what they're called at the moment. I'll have to double-check the art from book 4. Um, nope. That was wrong. Peakspren are the ones that look like stone golems in the physical realm, and have no similarity to these motes of flame.
    I note the glyph for number nine at his feet, which is the expected numerology. I have no idea what the other characters on the face of that step are meant to show. I suspect that these are not transliterated as we see in the other internal art, but rather intended to be genuine Rosharan language. As such it is unlikely to be decipherable, but I look forward to seeing attempts by other fans in case it is.
    Honor
    Tanavast! I shouldn't be surprised that his characteristic color is blue, but I suppose I am to an extent. Or perhaps it’s not–those are more likely wind or honor spread passing through the gem (sapphire?) in front of him. That brings up a host of questions about the interrelation between gems and spren, especially given that modern fabrials are not reflective of past technology. 
    His clothing is very billowy, especially in the legs and sleeves. It makes me wonder whether this is a Rosharan fashion, or instead something from his homeworld with received tradition causing the art to depict it with some accuracy. He has almost elegant features, if a rather forbidding expression. The long flowing white hair seems to be blown in the wind. 
    I'm also slightly surprised to see the lightning behind him matches in color to that of the everstorm on the front cover. Well, perhaps it's not a perfect match. This is more purple than pink or red. Of special note though, is the shattered stone beneath and around him. Is this a reference to Ashyn’s destruction, which would have been the point at which humanity first encountered him? That feels like a stretch. Is it a reference to the power of the highstorms? Or more symbolically, does it indicate the way that he and his power were shattered? Is it both? It does appear that he is surrounded by circular clouds as though in the eye of a storm or the center beat of the high storm. 
    I'm very excited to have these depictions Of Honor and Cultivation along with their heralds.
    Front matter
    Acknowledgments 
    Wow, that's a lot of artists! I only recognize about half of those names. I'm excited for more of the wonderful artwork that sets this series apart.
    Peter is “inviting” this time. 
    I note the DID and amputee/prosthetics experts. Glad to see them acknowledged. Those are some of my favorite parts of these books, and I'm glad Brandon makes the effort to get them right.
    Table of contents 
    Now this is a departure from form. We have interludes between each of the 10 days rather than the five parts as in the previous books. We'll have to wait and see whether that means more interludes or simply more spaced out. 
    It is notable that the 10 days are so explicitly marked out from each other. This will be interesting, given the way Brandon's cast will be splitting up across many locales, and their various climaxes and development will be divorced from each other. In the past time passed faster or slower narratively for groups in different places so that the climaxes could be moved around to fit Brandon’s desired narrative flow. That will be harder to do with such strictly forced chronology.
    From a structure perspective it makes for some complications on the writing side, without the option to desynchronize some of those storylines. I look forward to seeing how Brandon juggles that. 
    Map 
    The map appears to be identical to that from the previous book. Not a surprise given that that follows directly and has not had time to skip in which borders or other features would change.
     
  5. ccstat

    The Cover

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 
     
    I discovered when reviewing my previous blog that the links I created at the time to the artwork hosted on Brandon’s site are now broken. Dragonsteel continues to host the artwork from the books, but I don’t have confidence in those addresses remaining static, so I’ll refrain from linking the official art and simply trust that you have a hard copy to reference or can find it online.
    Cover Art
    Another wonderful cover by Michael Whelan. 
    The first thing that draws my eye are the gemstones. There are obviously more than 10 polestones arranged at the circumference of the platform. At least 15 are visible, with several possibly hidden behind the rocks. This suggests an arrangement of 20 but the colors are not necessarily going in the predicted sequence to match the double-eye arrangement. Yes, after checking it seems that the colors that occur more than once are accompanied by different neighbors at their two positions, so it is nothing so simple as an ordered sequence of the herald’s numerology. (I suspect no significance to the sequence depicted beyond aesthetics.) 
    The next thing that draws the eye is the shining path of the sun reflected along the bottom of the Everstorm. This harks to the cloudy pathways observed in Shadesmar sky, and while probably just a visual parallel, it also is possible the Dalinar is opening a singularity at this point. The pink/red colored lightning of the Everstorm is visually striking (pun only slightly intended).
    This is presumably taking place on top of the tower at Urithiru. If this is the case, that would necessitate artistic license as we know from book four that the storms never crest the top of the tower and if Dalinar is standing at the top of it then he would be looking down at the clouds rather than up. It could certainly be a separate location. The snowy peaks suggest the mountain range around the tower, and it seems unlikely that they would move to the Horneater Peaks. It's tempting to say it could also be the Misted Mountains east of Shinovar, given that people's reverence for bare rock. However, the rockbuds and related flora appearing in the foreground–especially across the spine of the book–make that seem very unlikely. 
    The colors of the storm matching to the reflected sunlight across the snow and to the gems and rockbuds…it's beautiful. 
    As for Dalinar himself, I think it's significant that he's holding a book in his hand. Could this be Nohadon’s Way of Kings? Dalinar’s own authored manuscript of Oathbringer? A separate book? Or perhaps the book’s presence is just artistic license? I do like that even when seen from behind, Dalinar’s age is shown off by the silver hair and the stance he takes. He's much less prominent in terms of size, or canvas real estate then Jasnah was in Oathbringer. I like the way that choice pushes the sense of scale to show the larger size of the problem he's confronting.
    I do not fully love the prominence of the Kholin glyph on his back even though it's accurate and I'm usually a big fan of the in-world iconography and the textual systems. It just visually feels slightly distracting. That’s just a knee-jerk reaction, though, and I do appreciate the accuracy. On that note, though, I presume the shoulder patch is the bondsmith symbol, yes? Would Dalinar actually wear something like that? I guess I could see him making that choice. 
    Well done, Michael Whelan! Overall this cover does an excellent job of tying all five stormlight books into a cohesive set. I will hope for the back five books to also benefit from this same artist, but if that’s not the case I’m happy with what the front five have received.
     
    Rear cover copy
    Ah yes, the sleepless. As a reminder, Brandon insisted that these back cover blurbs be actual in-world text rather than publisher hype, and this is one of the few windows we have into the machinations and viewpoint of the sleepless.
    Opening line: “I wonder if we should have done more.” Obviously the answer is yes, because the sleepless have been extremely hands-off. Presumably they could have done a great deal more to influence events to this point, and with the benefit of an outside perspective and hindsight, it’s easy to think of key points that intervention could have made an important difference. However, we learned in Dawnshard that the importance of their mission certainly extends beyond the relatively provincial concerns of Roshar and the local planets. I can easily understand why their priorities would clash with intervening more directly. 
    Wait. “We have what we wanted?” Since when were the sleepless pushing for the return of surgebinding? That's hardly the impression that I got from their earlier interactions. Wait a minute, I just realized that this individual is in places speaking personally with the pronoun “I” rather than “we”. All of the other back cover sections have been exclusively in the plural. So who is speaking here? We know at least one dissident has defected from the majority, and at least one is working with the Ghostbloods. This current individual says they “wished for the sword that humankind could be.” That feels closer to Odium’s words from the previous book, and it makes me wonder how the return of surgebinding might be an overlapping aim for multiple groups. I wonder whether the sleepless and the Sons of Honor share motivating goals to any degree. Ah and the next line directly brings up at least the first point: Odium and the sleepless may have been working towards same aim for competing reasons, or he may have manipulated them into seeking what he wants. Precog paranoia!
    The “culmination of… preparation, posturing, and prayer.” I like that phrase, and it also makes me wonder what the role of prayer is in the sleepless existence. As native Rosharans, do they have loyalty to Cultivation? We know that they have memories reaching back to the shattering, and thus predating her. And of course their mission involves knowledge and reverence of a sort for Adonalsium. This isn’t a particularly important question, I’m just wondering to whom the sleepless were praying for millennia. 
    Dalinar leading a “people who have forgotten their past” is presumably about humankind's departure from Ashyn, which suggests we may be getting more details in this book about Ishar and the exodus he led.
    Dalinar is the “reimagined king” and apparently on a search for truth, prompted by Cultivation.
    I'm not sure why Kaladin as the “reforged spear” would be the “hope of spren,” given the events that occurred in the High Integrity surrounding Adolin and Maya. That was clearly teasing the idea that nahel bonds may not be the preferred future of this symbiotic relationship. It may be oversimplifying for the purpose of the back cover, but I'm curious to see how that hope will be portrayed. The “reformed woman” is a loaded phrase to refer to Shallan, but the idea of her “prying into the corners of a god’s mind” makes me very excited for what she will be getting up to. I wonder if that's referring to the new Odium, or more likely one of the Unmade–especially Mishram, since she was the one in contact with Restares who requested her release. And Szeth being the “reborn assassin” makes me remember that this will be primarily his book. Between the flashbacks, the expedition to Shinovar, and all the rest, Szeth’s character growth will be in overdrive to achieve more self-determination and to both explore and come to peace with the Stone Shaman’s society. I wonder though whether the “once proud people” he’s holding at knifepoint is referring to his homeland, or perhaps to the Fused and their followers. 
    And finally the sleepless have lost their precognition; the future is clouded. And most importantly, the power of Honor (presumably the Stormfather) has “begun to question.” That means that bondsmith interactions between Dalinar and his patron will be particularly fraught. 
    I’m super excited, and very glad that the Brandon decided to place these cryptic in-world documents for us on the backs of the books. 
  6. ccstat

    Pre-reading commentary

    By ccstat,


    Entry
    This is my reaction blog for Winds and Truth. Index post here. (No spoilers for Winds and Truth this post, but the rest of the cosmere is fair game.)
    This post is for my expectations and predictions. Got to get these etched in metal before I’m tainted with anything like actual content.
    First, I will note that unlike the other Stormlight books, I’ve only read Rhythm once so far. I ran out of time for a true reread, and when I tried to go through the audiobook I had to quit several chapters in. No shade on Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, but their delivery and embodiment of the characters was just far enough away from my own that it was an incredibly frustrating experience to try to listen to. Almost every other line I would compulsively repeat it to myself with different intonation or emphasis, in the way I wanted it to sound. And so my preparation for Winds and Truth primarily consisted of re-reading my own liveblog of Rhythm of War, which was actually a lot of fun to do and contained enough detail that I feel like I have a good grasp on most of the critical pieces.
    So, a brief recap of what I liked and didn’t. On the positive side, my favorite part of Rhythm of War was Navani’s relationship with Raboniel, and her whole character arc about recognizing her own achievements. I do have some complaints about that (see below), but if Navani manages to fit any more fabrial science and sprengineering (I’m sure that’s the official term) into the final ten days, I will be eager to dive into it.  I am also all the way here for Shallan’s plural experience. Her interactions with Veil, Radiant, and Formless were one of the things I was most excited about throughout Rhythm. Along with that, Adolin and Maya’s relationship is top tier and the culmination of that in Lasting Integrity has to be one of the best stand-up-and-cheer moments for me out of the whole book. 
    And, of course, I was completely blown away by Taravangian’s ascension. It blindsided me in the best way, and I have only good expectations for how that will shake up and subvert the status quo. There are many different directions things could be headed, but Vargo supplanting Rayse as Odium’s vessel makes the conflict more interesting in every way.
    Less enthusiastically, I also liked plenty of other elements such as Venli’s journey and the Kaladin / Leshwi totally-not-a-ship. 
    On the negative side of things, I was disappointed by a few things, especially two of the major outcomes at the climax of the book. My complaints here are less severe than when I disliked Amaram’s possession in Oathbringer (which absolutely needed more groundwork to make it meaningful, and even then would still would have made him a more boring antagonist), but I still feel that Brandon undercut his own themes and made the wrong storytelling decisions in two places.
    First, Navani and the Sibling. Navani’s best feature as a character was that she didn’t have a nahel bond and still managed to be such a larger than life figure by relying on her personal strengths. Her scientific mind, her engineering acumen, and her leadership ability defined her, and her whole journey through Rhythm culminated in her recognition of those skills and valuing herself for herself. To then immediately have that success result in bonding a spren and becoming another radiant works counter to that entire narrative. Not to mention that having another Bondsmith among the Kholin family exacerbates the “Skywalker Problem” of making this one family matter more than the rest of the planet, and the Sibling’s own preference for a singer rather than a human. If I were to get my preference, I’d have the Sibling’s bond not even follow the nahel model but rather form something new like Adolin and Maya’s connection, and do so with Rlain or someone else that’s not Navani.
    Second, it feels very cheap that Kaladin’s fourth ideal about not being able to save everyone immediately results in him being able to save Lirin. It’s like saying the costs he paid to reach that point were unnecessary because actually he can do everything when he gets his next powerup. By putting Lirin in peril, that scene pulled the focus away from Teft, who had just had a dramatic death scene. I think Lirin’s place in that sequence confused the emotional beats and made me care a lot less about Kaladin’s success or the way Dalinar’s feat enabled it by granting him time to stabilize. I also think the first dramatic on-screen appearance of Shardplate should have been given on screen to Jasnah, rather than to Kaladin.
    Outside of the climax, it’s frustrating how many unnecessary secrets about Renarin continue to be withheld while he is forced into the background. I know that Brandon is saving a lot of his stuff for the back five books, and I expect that knowing too much about Glys and Renarin will spoil reveals he has planned for Winds and Truth or later books, but it feels like manufactured mystery when the characters have had a year of time-skip to explore and talk about some of these things, and they all say “Ah, and Renarin, who was special…and I won’t think any more about that now.”
    Anyway, those likes and dislikes will certainly play into my reactions as I get into the newest book, so this context feels important to provide.
    A few other things I am very curious or excited about:
    Nightblood! This being Szeth’s book, we know that Nightblood will feature prominently. We already saw a brief interaction with Ishar’s honorblade, and the climax with Taravangian. More shenanigans expected from sword-nimi!
    Secret societies! We learned a little bit about some of them, but there are still a whole lot of unknowns. Will we finally figure out what’s up with the Sons of Honor? Will we get a better explanation for why the Rosharan and Scadrian chapters of the Ghostbloods have such different styles?
    Unmade! Who is the unmade in Shinovar? Best candidates are Chemoarish (aka the Dustmother) and Dai-gonarthis (aka the Black Fisher) largely because we know the least about them, but it could be several others. What will they do with Ba-Ado-Mishram? Will Restares convince them to release her? What is the status of Sja-Anat’s defection from Odium, now that the Vessel has changed? Here’s hoping we get more answers here.
    Art and Translations! I always love the art in Stormlight books, and like to decipher the new scripts or glyphs that appear. I’m not really expecting a new writing system in this book, but would be excited if there was one. 
     
  7. ccstat

    Chapter 5

    By ccstat,


    Chapter
    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Intro post here. Beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 5 (Broken Spears)
    Epigraph: Oh, interesting. I thought the spren would enter the gem, then be trapped there when the stormlight ran dry. Instead, it’s more like you create a sudden vacuum, pulling the spren inside. That can’t be a pleasant process on the spren’s side.  Although, I really have to wonder who first discovered this phenomenon. Was this a chance discovery when a larkin was feeding and happened to capture a spren as a side effect? Was this something known by the early Radiants, with their use of stormlight? How old is fabrial science and where are its roots? In particular, how much does what they do now resemble the ancient types of fabrial? Soulcasters, regrowth, oathgates, and Urithiru’s mysterious tower mechanisms all appear to operate on quite different principles than modern devices. Actual developments in applying trapped spren for specific effects seem to have been an entirely recent phenomenon.
    I hadn’t thought that Ash would really stick around to tell them much. I’m very curious about how much they actually discovered in those conversations, and in what arrangements they made for Ash and Taln.
    3 flights =54 members. Where does the numerology of 18 come from? I know we’re using 9 as the number for Braize (and/or Odium?) but why double it? Is there some other organizing principle here?
    Rock’s kids are around and contributing. Yay Rock! Hooray for the unkalaki!
    50 Windrunner Knights plus 250+ squires is pretty respectable for only a year since Lopen and Teft figured it out. 
     

    The “almost” sticks out to me here. Who from the original crew (besides Shen, presumably) hasn’t formed a nahel bond?
    I hadn’t thought about spren being a limiting resource, but it makes sense, especially since Windrunners are apparently the most numerous due to the “strength of squires” quirk, meaning that their population was among the hardest hit during the Recreance and the demand will be highest in the current resurgence.
    Huh, I like that word. “Resurgence” seems like a great term for the re-emergence of surges, nahel bonds, and the association of humans with spren. I’m going to propose it on the forums as a name for the current time period on Roshar.
    One-on-one combat? Duels in the air? That’s not at all how I expected this to play out. I can respect the use of traditional chivalry and honor, following the singer’s history, but in a war like this I would have really expected them to try formation tactics, etc.
    I’m interested in this rivalry Kaladin has with Leshwi. They haven’t actually started fighting yet, but I’m getting a strong undercurrent of respect and anticipation from Kal. Is this a pseudo-date? Do they seek each other out not only to test their own skill but out of a kinship? I don’t see this becoming romantic, but definitely a bond of some sort. Might come in useful (or be devastating) when the opportunity to team up against another threat arrives.
    The Heavenly Ones will perform “rare” lashings. I wonder why, and how those lashings (dependent on a single surge rather than the paired surges of Windrunners) differ from what we have seen.
    This is a strong counter to the Radiants. I like that their abilities and gear are asymmetric, yet still mostly balanced. It bodes well for future fight scenes.
    Yeah, he looks forward to these. Especially since the honorable nature of the combat means bystanders are not at risk until he loses. No sudden hostage situations, no massive collateral damage, just a contest of skill with high personal stakes. This sounds almost like what Kal wants out of life.
    Oh, Rock. Obviously he’s not fighting, and there’s a good chance that means he hasn’t tried to bond a spren. So he may be one of the original crew who remains at squire level.
    Looks like it’s mutual. She enjoys it too.
    This is a standard construction, which I’m pretty sure we’ve seen before. (I’ll confirm with my list.) However, it does make me wonder how these references will change now that they’ve begun to encounter (and interview) the heralds. I guess we’ll see.
    Kal, you are a judgemental prick. Let it go. (Okay, i can recognize that this is a bigger deal than just a grudge, but all evidence points to Roshone doing a good job with things after Kal and Tien left. Laral has been good for him, too. So even if you can’t let go of the grudge, you should at least open yourself to recognizing that he isn’t Amaram or Sadeas.)
    At this point the question is more about whether this is as obvious to everyone else as it is to the reader. Is Kaladin obviously in denial to everyone around him, or haven’t they noticed his fixation on the opposing general?
    ---
    Back to Shallan. Radiant watching her think on her feet. Let’s see some improv.
    Is this the previous person who infiltrated the group? The one who wasn’t high placed enough to confirm Ialai’s involvement? (Is it Vathah?)
    Selling war tech. That’s a good cover. Lots of holes to poke in it, but if you’re using it to poke holes in your previous cover, that’s messy enough it might get you by.
    Ah, nope. It was Red, not Vathah.
    And Adolin rushes in with the unwanted rescue.
    ---
    How’s that for an ego boost? “You are our training dummy. Thanks Mr. Stormblessed.”
    Rematch with the teleporter is… not happening. Just a quick appearance.
    Kal is bitter about the breakup 😞 Poor Kal.
    Yes! Lift’s vocabulary spreads.
    It’s interesting to consider what a meme would be like in a place where ideas gain actual physical manifestations as they spread and take root. Will we see the emergence of new spren at some point in the series?
    WHAT? When did anyone go to Aimia? Will this be covered in the Dawnshard novella? Will we learn more about it here? TELL ME MORE! I must know.
    Yeah, he’s obsessed.
  8. ccstat

    Liveblog Introduction

    By ccstat,


    Intro
    Hello fellow Sanderfans! 
    When Oathbringer released I tried liveblogging my reactions (link to Google Docs), and found that it greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the book. Since then I’ve liveblogged a few other books with similar results, including one other Sanderson work (Starsight). I’m eager to do the same thing now with Rhythm of War, and this week the first preview chapters arrived on Tor.com. 
    In contrast to Oathbringer and Words of Radiance, I have kept myself unspoiled from all pre-release material so far, so everything will be fresh. In addition, I’ve been absent from the fandom for about 18 months, so I am woefully out of date on theories and current WoB. I expect to be hilariously wrong about a number of things as we go.
    I will also say that I'm going to try to slow down and take my time. I tend to binge read, finishing books quickly by pushing everything else to the side for an endless stream of "just one more chapter." One of the ways that live blogging helps to enhance my experience of the book is it forces me to slow down and actually appreciate what I'm reading instead of immediately moving on to the next scene. It lets the foreshadowing actually set in before the foreshadowed event takes place, for example. There are other factors, of course, but this is the one that impacts you as someone following along. Don't expect me to finish the book in the first week or even month. I'm planning to take even more time on Rhythm of War than I have for previous live blogs. This shouldn't matter a great deal, but I think it's important to set your expectations appropriately.
    With that out of the way, let’s get started! 
    Note1: This liveblog is being composed chapter by chapter in a Google Doc. This will be a rough commentary, and errors will probably crop up frequently. I will go back and edit for clarity, but please be patient.  Feedback is welcome, but grammatical corrections are  probably unnecessary unless they are egregious.
    Note2: This is my first time using the blog feature on 17S, so I'm not sure how the organization will work. My current plan is to create an index at the bottom, spoilered if it gets too large. If something else becomes necessary, I'll try to adjust.
    INDEX:
    Cover and Prologue; Back Cover
    Internal Art: Herald Portraits part I and part II; Maps: Shadesmar and Emul (see ch 46); Navani's Notebook part I, part II, part III, part IV; Shallan's Sketchbook part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V, part VI, part VII, part VIII; Fashion Folios, Alethi Glyphs
    Book I: Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
    Interludes: I-1, I-2, I-3
    Book II: Chapter 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43
    Interludes: I-4, I-5, I-6
    Book III: Chapter 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72
    Interludes: I-7, I-8, I-9
    Book IV: Chapter 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97
    Interludes: I-10, I-11, I-12
    Book V: Chapter 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117
    Epilogue
    Endnote and Ars Arcana
  9. ccstat

    Chapter 5

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of The Lost Metal! Intro post here, beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 5
    I only just now paid attention to the allomantic symbols heading the chapters, and it took me far too long to confirm that they are indeed just numeric. I recognize those symbols far less than I do the various glyphs and scripts of stormlight, and they are just too similar to one another for me to commit many to memory without more meaning ascribed to them than numerals. The “seal of the city” style border around them is a nice look, though. Or maybe it’s supposed to be a coin/medal of some sort? 
    If I were to guess, I’d peg Kath the governess as a cameo of some sort, but I’ve been distanced from the fandom enough to not recognize the name as someone in particular, if she even is a name drawn from fans rather than personal friends (not to disparage those fans who have become personal friends).
    Max is playing with a Soonie Pup, which makes me wonder how MeLaan and others react to that cultural phenomenon not only among the general populace but also the friends and family they are close to.
    A personal delivery from Harmony, containing a god-communing earring? You’ve got someone’s eye on you, Wax. The ominous part for me is the need for a second earring in addition to this one. How many piercings does Harmony intend for him to have? Does this newly delivered earring replace his usual one or supplement it? And that’s not getting into the question of what metal is on its way. Presumably ettmetal since that was mentioned previously in this book and is the only one (aside from the unavailable Atium and Lerasium) that the people of Elendel wouldn’t have ready access to. However, that’s not getting into the necessity for spikes to be hemalurgically charged, so the metal’s composition and history must both be taken into account. These things are not easily fungible, especially not special ones intended for a protagonist/champion.
    Huh. I just realized how weird it must be for people in the know to look at the Survivorist faith, in light of what Kel is up to. Although, I don’t think we have a good sense for how long the society he leads has been active in the cosmere, so it’s distantly possible that things are still ramping up at this stage. I admit I’m not super clear on the precise timeline between this book and Stormlight. I have in mind that it’s only a handful of years between whatever happens in Lost Metal and the beginning of Way of Kings, but I don’t actually know that for sure.
    Yes, the amount of baggage that accumulates when you travel with young children is a whole thing. That at least is common between Earth and Scadrial.
    “They’re not all slag for voting against you.”
    I like the use of slag as a derogatory term. Nice cultural color for a place with highly prominent metalworking and mining.
    Nice to know that Wayne has been helping to raise Max with the appropriate accents and outlook on life. At least they don’t let him babysit unsupervised.
    Huh. Has Hoid been hanging around Wax for two years now? That seems like a higher level of commitment than we generally see from him. Although, that’s not necessarily true, given his various appearances in different character’s backstories on Roshar. He presumably interacted with them for months to years at a time in a consistent role. Frequtent. carriage driver for Harmony’s chosen isn’t that big a stretch.
    Flying piggy back rides trump the regular kind any day of the week!
    Does Wax carry spent bullet casings just to stay on brand when he leaps away dramatically? Most people don’t just carry those around, and he has other bits of metal he could doubtless use instead. It’s got to be part of his “Senator of the Roughs” bit. What a ham.
     
  10. ccstat

    Chapters 3-4

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of The Lost Metal! Intro post here, beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 3
    Ah, yes. The primary benefit of trousers. 
    I like how Marasi’s daydream about the Survivor’s Cradle is cut short with an “oh yeah, Wax has been there.” It’s got to be a disjointed experience to live alongside the larger than life figures that are cosmere protagonists, even taking into account her own impressive accomplishments in these adventures.
    Wayne hasn’t even noticed the footprints? He appears to be genuine here, and not building up to a joke. I’m not super surprised, I guess, but he’s usually quite observant of details.
    Huh, neat development of the Malwish mask culture. “Moving the mask is like … emphasis to the Malwish. It’s not wrong to let people see under the mask, though they pretend it’s taboo.” Not gonna lie, this sounds like something Allik might have made up for his own benefit in pursuing Marasi. If there weren’t other Malwish around for the past few years to confirm this I’d have been very suspicious.
    Wayne: you get a lucky hat, as long as you promise to take it off before something unlucky happens. 
    I like the logic!
    See, when your established currency is called a boxing, sentences like this can trip you up. Took me three tries to remember the standard (non-pugilist) meaning of the word.
    All this sneaking seems a bit ill-conceived. Maybe I’m jumping the gun here, but wouldn’t any self-respecting criminal enterprise employ a Tineye or two to listen for intruders?
    – this not being a Stormlight novel, I won’t really be collecting a comprehensive list of swears, but I’m still in the habit of noting them down. Here’s a good one.
    Oh, wait if this is Set-affiliated, they’ll have all sorts of off-world devices or powers that will be harder to anticipate than a simple Tineye. Marasi is gonna be in trouble. 
    Ah, nope. They just surprised a mundane guard. I guess this gang is more patsies / cat’s paws than actual Set manpower, so they don’t get any of the good stuff.
    On that topic, we learn a bit about Set hierarchy: Cycle<Suit<???
    Hopefully there’s more info soon.
    Chapter 4
    I like seeing that Marasi and Wayne have good teamwork in this fight scene. It’s a development that makes their partnership feel like it’s actually been meaningful and substantive in the intervening time between books.
    The allomantic grenades really are a game changer in many ways, but especially so for Marasi’s cadmium. I can’t wait to see what game changers accompany the next Era’s developments!
    Interesting that Wayne’s affinity for bendalloy, i.e. his progression toward savant-hood, is noticeable to an outside perspective, as Marasi notes his charge time is decreasing. Presumably there are other effects as well. Hopefully the side effects are not of the tragic variety. Bendalloy and Wayne both seem to fall in the “live fast, die young” category, though.
    The magnitude of time speeding/slowing from bendalloy and cadmium always feels a bit excessive to me. The other allomantic abilities are powerful as well so from a balance perspective it makes sense that they would be high-end, but time powers are super useful, even without them being strong enough to reach bullet time. I’m not complaining or criticizing, just pointing out that it throws me almost every time this happens in an action scene because I expect the time dilation to be less extreme.
    Ah, there’s the callback to Wayne’s earlier comment about being the guy who sometimes gets blown up. Fireworks on the way!
    Oh, he just dropped a flash-bang grenade inside a box of explosives. That’s a bit less accidental than I was anticipating. 
  11. ccstat

    Broadsheet part 1

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of The Lost Metal! Intro post here, beware of spoilers.
    BROADSHEET part 1
    I’d forgotten how frustrating it was to get the broadsheet split into quadrants like this. For the moment I’ll read and comment on them individually as they appear, but it’s tempting to just wait and do the whole thing at once when it’s available.
    Title:
    The Two What?? Going by the subtitle/quote thing it’s Seasons, which I suppose means that Elendel is equatorial? I don’t really remember the geography, but Scadrial is supposed to be very Earth-analog, so it’s got to do with latitude or with coastal climate to explain the difference. I do want to know who that quote is attributed to, but I won’t until we get the next piece of the broadsheet.
    Unity or Division:
    I like the photo/portrait to show off the appearance (including fashion!) of Governor Varlance and Vice Gov. Adawathwyn. But that immediately makes me wonder: what’s the status of photography in current-day Elendel? I don’t remember it being mentioned in the prior books, but that could just be a failure of my recollection rather than an actual absence from the shown worldbuilding. Early photographic technology relied heavily on colloidal solutions of metals, which would make it thematically a likely candidate for early development on Scadrial. Until we see evidence either way, I’m going to headcanon that photography is advancing quickly.  
    In a separate note, the use of “cronies” to describe the Governor’s political allies feels very period-appropriate and reveals the nature of the Two Seasons’ journalistic bent.
    Editorials and ads: 
    What the heck is a noseball? Drug delivery system to compare with smoking? That’s my best guess, but I’m going to have to wait on the next piece of broadsheet to learn more.
    Soonie Pups! I forgot those were a thing in-world. And apparently controversial enough for a scandalized letter to the editor! I love it.
    Nicki Savage:
    Gotta admit, “hellguns” is a sweet name for a weapon used by a “Haunted Man”. That’s top tier theming right there. Good job, Nicki’s publisher!
    That is immediately forgotten, though, when we get to the meat of the episode. What devilry is this?! Dinosaur-analog fossils? Made out of aluminum? Worn by not one but two faceless who merge Voltron-style into a single dino-mount for Nicki to ride across a chasm? Allomancer Jak can’t possibly compete with this. I would tune in every single week to find out what happens next!
     
    This ornisaur does send my mind into wondering about fossils on Scadrial. We had artificially-shifted continents and mountain raising events at least twice, meaning that reconstructing the history of the planet geologically is going to be an endeavor, but also that certain things might have been exposed differently than one might expect from our experience on earth. We also had several millennia of ashfall and high volcanic activity, likely resulting in well-preserved remains from prior to Rashek’s ascension as Lord Ruler. Certainly not permineralized or anything yet, but more along the lines of mummification or the incredible preservation of Pompeii.
     
    And now I want to see the natural history museum of Era 3 Mistborn.
  12. ccstat

    Chapter 2

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of The Lost Metal! Intro post here, beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 2
    Steris is getting him ready using a prepared list, which matches my expectations. But from the way he’s stowing evidence for probable dramatic reveal, I get the sense he’s preparing for a courtroom, which very much does not match my expectations. He’s always been a lawman, but I didn’t think he’d ever be that sort of lawman.
    Oh, maybe not. He’s in “his senator’s chamber in the House of Proceedings.” Which makes him yet another type of lawman, though this one is a bit more believable development than Attorney Ladrian.
    I still don’t really approve of the name Maxillium. Wax should have known better than to saddle a kid with that. I like that he’s got a sister named Tindwyl, though.
    Wax “looming” as he’s about to address the assembly is a nice image. He comes by them naturally, but he’s also clearly taken to cultivating his presence and reputation (probably thanks to Steris’ advice).
    Interesting how the demographics of the cabinet or the campaign ticket play out here, with Terris administrators being trusted/fashionable. A clear parallel to how our own campaign decisions often get made, but in unique Scadrian style.
    I appreciate Wax’s characteristic bluntness, but it is slightly odd to me that he’s comfortable being so blunt in front of the Malwish ambassador. It makes sense, if she’s privy to all of these meetings anyway, but it still smacks of not only exposing weakness to an outsider but specifically pointing it out.
    I can’t help thinking that either Wax is underestimating Varlance, or Adawathyn has a lot more going on than “clever power behind the throne.” Maybe both. They seem a little too much like stereotypical set pieces to be played straight in a Sanderson novel. Then again, we may not see much of the legislative maneuvering, since Wax has to fail here for a tightly paced inciting incident.
    And yes, Wax’s exposure of vote-selling works, but not well enough to secure or delay the vote. War on the way, unless Wax saves the day! Sounds like we’ve got ourselves a plot, and plenty of factions to keep it interesting both before and after hostilities break out.
     
  13. ccstat

    Chapter 1

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of The Lost Metal! Intro post here, beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 1
    Yay Marasi! I’ve missed these people. And wow, that’s a good opening description because I can absolutely feel the rush of adrenaline as you almost fall–even if the consequences are only horrible and not deadly.
    Walking alone through the sewer with a map in one hand…is she auditioning to be Nazh’s understudy? I feel like he could use a kindred spirit (or a grad student to delegate to).
    Oh, wait. She’s not alone, she’s got Wayne to “help”. Poor Marasi. Except that she’s giving as good as she gets. Oh, how she’s grown. Love the spider taunting.
    Wait, Wax has been retired for six years? How on Scadrial did Steris get that to stick? I love their relationship, but I would not have expected her to keep him out of trouble for that long. Although, I suppose we don’t have any indication that he hasn’t been pursuing investigations as a hobby, just that he’s not doing so officially.
    Ah, confirmation that the rail lines are indeed expanding compared to the previous book, so the map difference is real. They seem to be going straight for subways, which is impressive. There’s a lot of engineering that goes into getting those right.
    Oh no! MeLaan is breaking up with Wayne? Sad day. I can see why he’d be in the dumps (metaphorically speaking, not a reference to his current location).
    I sometimes wonder if it’s a disadvantage to be engaged in the cosmere and have advance insight from past questions Brandon answered about  things like Trell and the Set, rather than seeing the entire thing as a mystery. I am positive that I’ll be surprised many times still, but when I see the first mention in this book and think “Oh, yeah. Autonomy” it feels like the characters are playing catchup in their investigation, which isn’t a super fun feeling. (Not complaining, of course. I love the between-book theorizing and everything that goes with it.)
     
  14. ccstat

    Prologue

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of The Lost Metal! Intro post here, beware of spoilers.
    Prologue
    Well, that’s the Tinweight mystery solved. Baby Wayne grew up there. 
    I was going to say that young Wayne sounds too much like adult Wayne, but after a paragraph or two, I can see the difference. He’s a bit more carefree here in his narration, or perhaps candid. At least, that’s my initial impression.
    “One-window home” is a clever descriptor. It gets the message across, and also hints at both the time period and the society.
    Ouch. That is doubly painful, and I’m not sure whether the cultural blindness or the adolescent anxiety digs harder. They feed into each other so well, and this could easily be the start of a feel-good coming of age story if it were a TV show aimed at teens. 
    “Don’t swear like that!” →Okay, I’ll change my accent and pronunciation, but none of the words. I love it.
     
    Okay, that one got me laughing out loud. Wayne’s mom better not die in this prologue, because I’m not on board with that kind of sadfeels to kick things off.
    Roll around in dirt in order to think like the ground. Only Wayne. …actually, I can see Shallan saying something like that. I’m not sure if I would enjoy a scene of Wayne and Shallan trying to outdo each other, but it sure would be something. I think I’d definitely enjoy young Wayne and young Lift arguing about the thievery vs. trading, though.
    I have to admire a name like Blatant Barm. That’s a name to own, for sure. Not bad for villain of the week in an Allomancer Jak story.
    Bahaha. Bastards vs “regular old turds” is hilarious to me. Dug is teaching Wayne all kinds of great stuff.
    Human got a river named after him? That’s very sweet. I wonder if anyone remembers who he was? A little bit on the nose that his river separates human land from koloss land, though.
    Okay, I can’t spend the whole page just repeating Wayne’s jokes, but he got me again with the “shoot a fly” thing. I don’t always love Wayne’s humor, but this sequence is working for me.
    Um, really? That’s your superpower? Please tell me you’re obfuscating to hide your true abilities, because that’s… you know what? Fine. Color me impressed. For what it’s worth though, I’m not interested in getting that ability spiked into me.
    I know it’s not, but the way this story is going with the names and such, I feel like the whole thing is just Ma building up to some elaborate pun. I know she’s a better mom than that, but I would crack up if she turned out to be a jokester in a twist ending here.
    Well, kinda. She went for “Jak won by being a big damn pain in the ass” ending, which was almost a joke in the way she told it, but also a great teaching approach for channeling Wayne’s exuberance. I do love the back and forth of their storytelling technique, too. 
    And yup, she’s gone. Leastways it happened offscreen at the mine instead of right in the middle of the domestic scene.
     
  15. ccstat

    Maps!

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of The Lost Metal! Intro post here, beware of spoilers.
    MAPS! We have maps, people. 
    I don’t remember the maps super well from the previous books, but it looks like the map of the Elendel Basin hasn’t changed. The rail lines might be longer? And I don’t recognize the name Tinweight Settlement, so it and a few other locations may be newly noted. Then again, I could just be failing to recall the last version.
    The map of the City of Elendel definitely has new notations. I recognize that handwriting! How are you doing, Nazh? Still put-upon, I see. Khriss is driving you really hard, isn’t she? 
    I expect we’ll learn more about these locations soon, but it does seem to me that the rail lines are more extensive than before. I’ll have to pull up the old versions to check at some point.
    The third map, though. Whoo-wee! We’ve got a view past the Basin, including the southern continent and beyond! Yay!
    …Although, is it just me? Was anyone else expecting there to be an actual ocean between the continents? It feels a little silly that everything is so connected by supposedly navigable coastline, even if those mountains and the intervening roughs appear to block easy foot travel. It’s hard to believe that nice climate and available resources is enough to preclude all exploration outside the Elendel Basin area. If the SoScads (Malwish consortium, apparently) have had time to develop airships, surely some intrepid soul would have at least sailed a boat around? 
    Gasp! Allomancer Jack? You volunteer? Good luck, sir, and I look forward to reading of your exploits in the broadsheets
    I’m particularly intrigued by the presence of a landmass beyond the Malwish, here denoted only as “The Maskless.” That little detail suggests that there are a lot more populated regions of Scadrial than had been expected. Elendel may have Harmony’s blessing and attention in a lot of ways, but it’s hard not to consider them provincial when looking at this map and remembering that Scadrial is the closest thing to an Earth analog. There’s got to be a lot of room for the population to have expanded since the Catacendre, from Harmony only knows how many hidden pockets of survivors. 
    I do wonder if the southern landmass where the Maskless live is similarly frigid to the Malwish’s tundra-like home. There are no latitude indicators on the map, and I wouldn’t know what units to use anyway. The map grid is extremely regular, with no attempt to compensate for planetary curvature. That could be an artifact of the chosen projection, or it could be an indication that these “continents” are not as large as that term would lead us to believe. The apparent size of the Elendel Basin suggests the latter to me.
     
  16. ccstat

    Introductory Post

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of The Lost Metal! Join me as I make terrible predictions, overanalyze everything, geek out about magic, and generally enjoy my time on Scadrial. 
    I’ve previously liveblogged The Rhythm of War here on 17S, and my reactions to both Oathbringer and Starsight are also available in Google Doc format.
    As with Rhythm of War, I’ve kept myself spoiler free for this book, so I’ll be going in with a lot less knowledge than some…especially since I ran out of time and haven’t re-read any of Era 2 like I had planned, so a lot of details are likely to have eroded from my mind. Hopefully the same isn’t true of major plot points, but no promises. Expect me to be hilariously wrong about things at least some of the time. 
    I haven’t determined a format for this yet. I don’t expect to have as much to analyze as we do in Stormlight books, so I doubt I’ll need to do a chapter per post, but we’ll have to see.
    Presumably there will be a decent quota of crossover characters and magic in this book, since we’re closing out Era 2 and paving the way for the next phase of Cosmere interactions. I’ve read every published Cosmere work except for Dawnshard so far, so expect spoilers for everything when it comes to theories and connections.
    If I prevaricate much longer, I’m never going to get started on this book, though, so let’s jump into it. On to the good stuff!
     
  17. ccstat

    Endnote and Ars Arcanum

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.
    Endnote
    I’ll admit I don’t really get this ketek. I’m going to have to think about it for a bit. It’s disturbing that it’s written by El, who in this case is noted to be a/the “Fused scholar of human art forms.”
    Is this endnote by Nazh? Who else would be collecting the keteks and writing commentary about singer interpretation of Alethi poetic styles? The typeface isn’t different, so we can’t positively identify it as Nazh by handwriting, like we can on the maps etc. 
     
    Ars Arcanum
    There is a disappointing absence of new information about fabrials in the Ars Arcanum. This being Navani’s book to shine and demonstrate her engineering, not to mention the discoveries regarding tuning investiture to different tones or rhythms, I would have expected an expansion of that section. 
    Everything else looks the same, with the exception of Stoneshaping. Even the Soulcasting entry looks identical to past versions, if my memory holds. I’ll need to do a careful comparison to actually be sure.
    As for Stoneshaping, Khriss makes comparisons to microkinesis from Yolen (which we only know of through WoB, none of it canon yet) and discusses Intent. Nothing that really stands out to me, honestly, except for the contrast between Soulcasting and Stoneshaping in their ease of manipulating stone. That part’s got to come down to spren, though. 
    The discussion of willingness, connection, and command feel basic, and I’ll need to think about how they apply (or not) to other systems if I’m going to figure out what Brandon is trying to convey here.
    She does note that Nazh is being embedded with the Stonwards. I wonder if I missed a cameo from him in this book.
    And “Foil, deep within his ocean,” is apparently a scholar with competing hypotheses to Khriss. He is seeking control of the aethers, so there’s our Aether of Night connection. I don’t recall if we’ve encountered this name before. 
     
    And that's the end! Thank you for joining me.
    I'll make a retrospective post soon to wrap up the whole liveblog experience.
  18. ccstat

    Epilogue

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.
    Epilogue (Dirty Tricks)
    Icons: Jester and Ash (mirrored) –Wit the lightweaver, naturally
    Design is the sort of audience member Wit needs: unimpressed and… I want to say snarky but she’s more genuine than that. Willing to object.
    Wit, on considering Sja-Anat’s expanding influence. This is striking because Sja-Anat has been shown to be working for the benefit of Roshar and against Odium. Is there something about her “corruption” of spren that Hoid would consider horrifying? Surely he’s encountered things like this in the past, and the context makes it seem like it’s the scale of the thing that worries him. 
    Wit makes a good and interesting point about how the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief is what makes them participants in the experience of storytelling or magic or theater. I hadn’t thought of it in that specific a breakdown before.
    That series of “sense” puns are quite fun when read in text, but I would have been utterly lost in the audiobook. I can’t decide if I love it or hate it.
    Taravangian is too competent, even when pretending to be as mindless as Rayse, and Wit clues in that something is wrong… but he keeps his memories in Breath rather than in his brain, which makes them vulnerable. But Odium doesn’t take everything, he merely erases the last few minutes and repeats his performance. There are far more holes in it the second time, but it’s in the direction that Wit expects, so he doesn’t question it. Even when his reduced Breath reserve means he’s lost perfect pitch, he pushes past it all and ignores the discontinuities.
    –new swear from Wit! Onto the list it goes.
    Honestly, I’m a little shocked that Brandon let Wit be bested here. It’s a good technique for upping the stakes, to show Wit being bamboozled and harmed. Brandon is fond enough of Wit and especially these epilogue ruminations on storytelling that I never anticipated this being such a complete win for neo-Odium. 
    It hammers home the threat that an ascended Taravangian poses, but I still like Mr. T a lot and know that Hoid is not always working toward ends that the other protagonists would agree with, so I’m withholding judgement on whether this is a good or a bad thing.
    I am incredibly intrigued by the question of what Renarin knows. His visions let him see the confrontation with Szeth ahead of time, and I have a suspicion that Renarin knows about the ascension. If I’m right, that makes it fascinating that he hasn’t told Dalinar anything about it (yet). I wonder what end he’s working toward, and how that aligns with Cultivation’s desires. Going the other direction, Taravangian knows that Renarin is a blind spot and a fulcrum for events, and I wonder how he’s going to try to remedy/exploit that. 
     
  19. ccstat

    Chapter 117

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 117 (One Final Gift)
    Icons: Kalak and Jez, mirrored.
    Okay, I’m a little conflicted here. I need to admit that I read this chapter twice, since I mostly neglected to take notes on it the first time through. The strange thing is, the first read-through I was annoyed at the placement of the chapter. I thought, “why wait until now to show us Eshonai’s death? Wouldn’t it have been better at the end of Words of Radiance, so that it’s a continuation/conclusion of her story there, and then we know ahead of time to expect Venli’s protagonist?” It seemed odd to wait two books to give us this scene.
    However, on my second read through I distinctly thought, “I like this framing. Eshonai survives the fall, but we know Venli finds her corpse, so there’s a tension and anticipation about how she’ll meet her demise.” 
    I think I mostly agree with my second opinion, especially as this whole book of Rhythm of War has given us a look into Eshonai and Venli’s past, so this intersection between the flashbacks and the on-screen events of the books is an appropriate ending. It’s also a good way to tie it together, given it’s also the Stormfather’s answer to Dalinar about mercy.
    At the same time, though, the triumphant feeling of Eshonai finding the Rhythm of War and freeing herself from her servitude to Odium is undercut by the knowledge that it will be two years in-world before that feat is repeated, and Eshonai’s success won’t contribute to that at all. Her escape is personal and sadly divorced from any direct impact on events.The overt contrast between her fight for survival and her fight for her freedom is well done, and that she finds it a victory to win one but not the other is touching.
    I’m not clear on whether this is something that could be the case for all Radiants or if Eshonai’s transition to Radianthood is important. We see a burst of investiture each time Kaladin progresses to a new oath or ideal, so it’s certainly plausible that if Eshonai had died twenty minutes later she wouldn’t have lingered as much. On the other hand, simply being connected to a nahel bond is fairly investiture intensive, so the transition points might not matter so much for this.
    Eshonai and the Stormfather have a nice Life Before Death sort of discussion, though the flip-flop of their positions in this philosophical dialectic is a little odd. Stormfather doesn’t take the same perspective for the whole thing, almost arguing in a devil’s advocate sort of way.
    Eshonai, as the first listener Willshaper, getting to ride the storm and explore the whole of Roshar is definitely a fitting a merciful gift. Good job, Stormfather!
    And tying the movement Beyond to her exploratory nature gives the ending an even more hopeful tone. Nicely done.
     
  20. ccstat

    Chapter 116

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 116 (Mercy)
    Icons: Shash, Jez, and double Ishar (not mirrored) 
    I’m about to give up on interpreting these odd arrangements. What is up with the mirroring/not-mirroring thing? Why 3? 
    Epigraph: El is aware of the change in Odium’s vessel, and has been “waiting to worship” the new one. I’m not any more enamored of this guy than I was from the previous musings.
    Good, Kaladin is intentionally taking a step back. He acknowledges that the mental health work he’s doing is valuable both for its own sake and for the healing he gets from it. Not a big moment, but it’s the right note to end his arc.
    They have ten days to capture territory before the borders are finalized. That’s going to make it hard for Dalinar to keep his promise to the Mink.
    “Oh, you want to be a mental health expert? Perfect timing. You have ten days to up your game and perfect your techniques, abduct Ishar for an intervention, and have him train me to fight Odium. Time to get good, soldier.”
    And here I was thinking that Kaladin’s focus on healing would take him out of the front lines. Silly me.
    The flute is back! After Brandon’s exasperated answers to the many times we asked about it, I figured it was going to stay lost.
    I love it. Oh, and she kept the chicken? Nice! Wait, no, Wyndle kept the chicken? How is that going to work? You garden chairs, you defective voidbringer. You’re not ready for an exotic chicken as a pet!
    ***
    Here we’re meeting El. I have to say I’m a little disturbed by this description. He rips off his natural carapace every time he possesses a new body, and replaces it with metal. He speaks with no rhythms. He is “The one with no title.” None of these are good signs.
    El was forbidden rhythms. Good grief, what did he do to earn that punishment?
    Navani stole El’s title. Go Navani! 
    Welp, the Pursuer is toast now. It really makes me curious what New!Odium and El felt the need to test this. I mean, it makes sense that Taravangian would want to see it for himself, since he missed the whole development series Navani and Raboniel did, but what’s the goal? What is he so eager to purge from his forces/his self to reshape his new divinity? There are lots of options, and few of them are good.
    ***
    Urithiru is finally alive. Hooray!
    Aww, Kaladin found the wooden horse. More mysteries!
    ***
    Oh, the irony is delicious!
    Interesting take on the agreement: “Wit thinks we’ve already won, but he got what he wanted.” Dalinar is right to be worried, even if Taravangian hadn’t pulled off that switcheroo. With that change, everything is much more in flux than anyone knows.
    Stormfather’s mercy is… the final Eshonai flashback! Nice. Excited to see how that manifests.
  21. ccstat

    Chapter 115

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 115 (Testament)
    Icons: Kalak and Ash, mirrored as per usual. My guess about the symmetry being broken is wrong, or only applies to chapters with the new Odium.
    Epigraph: This El seems like a jolly fellow. Let’s support his candidacy for overlord.
    Shallan is trying to rehabilitate her first spren, now named Testament. This is going to be a long, laborious process. Props to Shallan for embarking on it essentially without hesitation (once the decade of repressed memories finally resurfaced, at least).
    Huh. Mraize’s radio is a seon. Looks sadly abused :-( I don’t know Aons at all, so no clue what Ala means. I’m sure it’s on the wiki by now, though.
    So Radiant has stuck around. That’s interesting. I’m not sure how that dynamic is going to work without Veil. Nor am I quite certain why Veil is the one who was reabsorbed for this set of memories. I’m going to have to review my notes and see how the developing personas interacted with those forgotten parts of Shallan.
    This is a cool speech you’re giving Mraize, but it feels a little bit like you’re giving up way more information than you need to. Why tell him you’re coming after him? That’s way more warning than you should offer.
    Thaidakar. The Lord of Scars. Someone Wit threatens to slap around. Again. 
    Gah!  This is where I facepalm. 
    Thaidakar is Kelsier. Kelsier is leading the Ghostbloods. 

    Let the record show that I was the one who asked this question years ago, allowing Brandon to troll us on this:
    ccstat If Kelsier (when Vin knew him) were to join one of the Rosharan secret societies, which one would he choose? Brandon Sanderson He would become part of the Ghostbloods, most likely, and would be in charge of them within a year. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3585 So close, and yet so blindly, stupidly far.
    Okay, that’s a cool line. Good work, Shallan.
    ***
    Yeah, that’s a pretty quick turnaround to let Venli do strange things with strange spren. I can see why she got away with it the first time. 
    I mean, I get that we’re in the epilogue and can’t belabor the point much, but really? You just let her waltz into the camp and talk about bonding new spren again? It’s convenient that she’s right this time, and we the readers want you to listen, because otherwise I’d be pretty cross.
    “Hundreds.” She’s going to turn the whole listener encampment into a band of Willshapers? That’s pretty awesome, and that would be a significant deterrent to summary destruction by a handful of Fused. Good move.
    Venli singing the old songs for her mother is very sweet. 
    And the listeners have allied with the chasmfiends. That’s pretty awesome, and another strong deterrent. I guess I’m not too upset after all. You had good reason to allow her into the camp. If she tried something, there was a defense available. 
    Aww, Jaxlim wakes up, her senility cured (? at least partially) by radiance, and she gets to reunite with Venli.
    And that’s the moment that Venli’s words are accepted, because she’s made enough of an effort to make them real. …but we don’t get to see her second-ideal power up. Too bad.
  22. ccstat

    Chapter 114

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 114 (Broken Gods)
    Icons: Betab and Palliah, doubled but not mirrored, similar to last chapter. Hm. Has the symmetry been broken by the ascension of a new Odium? Is that what’s going on here? I guess I’ll have to see if the pattern holds.
    Chapter icon is intelligent Taravangian.
    Epigraph: Speaking as a human, I’m not too keen on being helped to my “final Passion,” thanks. Sorry, El. Not a fan of this approach.
     
    Rlain’s spren is named Tumi, and it’s the one they kept thinking was a voidspren. 
    I like the title “Bridger of Minds” for Rlain, and I’m glad that he got a spren, but I’m not really enthused by him being one of the aberrant Radiants via Sja-Anat, or being a Truthwatcher. Neither feel right to me, and I’m still salty that he didn’t end up as the Bondsmith with the Sibling. I suppose that would have undercut Venli’s first-listener-Radiant accomplishment, and Rlain’s not really the strong personality type to negotiate with Dalinar, so it’s probably for the best. But still, why have his spren be the special-flavor kind? It sets him apart as different yet again. Also, why have another truthwatcher spren be the sja-anat touched one?
    Leshwi and company have become listeners and are following Venli into the hills to find the lost legion. Nice, and it’s great to see Kaladin and Leshwi parting on mutually acknowledged positive terms. Still, it’s kind of sad that they won’t be best frenemies any more. That dynamic was ship-tastic.
    And Teft gets a funeral.
    ***
    Well, that answers the question of Szeth. He figures that the burned-out corpse is Taravangian. 
    Taravangian is struggling against the overwhelming Passion of Odium’s mantle, but he’s been prepared for this. He was given the capacity to stop what was coming, not only by being attuned to pick up the power, but also by being trained to handle overwhelming emotion and overflowing intellect. He is uniquely able to remain himself under its weight.
    And he’s about to talk to Cultivation, but of course we don’t get to see any of that.
    ***
    Teft and Phendorana get memorials in Urithiru. Everyone is there except Rock.
    And things are ambiguously worded again to try to convince us Rock is dead. “Kaladin wouldn’t be seeing Rock again.” Right, we believe that, definitely. It’s not as though he’s obviously passed through into Shadesmar for a reappearance down the line. *eyeroll*
    Nice moment with Kaladin and Syl, here. I still find it weird that she gets to be human sized sometimes, though. Spren should always be chibi-sized, imo
    ***
    Oh, we do get to see Cultivation!
    Description: black hair, dark skin, and “another shape as well, deeper and truer than the others.”
    Welp, I guess she’s one of our dragon Vessels. I don’t know if we’ve established how many of those there are, but here’s one accounted for.
    And Taravangian explains the whole training/attuning thing better than I did.
    That “with honor” is a loaded phrase, given the other dead god in the room.
    Oh dear, Taravangian is very spookily thinking of all the loopholes he can use to win that Rayse was too blinded to see. He’s thinking of ways to get around what Cultivation is asking him to do. He has a lot of agency here, and we have no idea what he actually wants. 
    Well, crap. Looks like we have an antagonist, folks. I have to say, though, this is a much more interesting antagonist than Rayse ever could have been. If this gives us another complex character and relationship like Raboniel, I am all in favor.
     
  23. ccstat

    Chapter 113

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.
    NOTE: Many, many apologies for the delay. Yes, it's been six months since my last entry. Don't worry, we're in the home stretch now. The end is in sight!
    Chapter 113 (Emotion)
    Icons: Compassionate Taravangian at the top. Chach and Nale as dual herald icons, but not mirrored. Weird. What’s this intended to mean?
    Epigraph: Best guess is that El is going to be Odium’s champion. I don’t think we’ve met him yet, though.
    Navani having a sensory awareness of the tower’s mechanisms is a cool thing, even if I’m still a bit unhappy about how this whole Sibling bonding thing went down. At least their relationship is still explicitly a work in progress.
    Raboniel is alive? Woah. Aww, they get to say goodbye! And she asks Navani to perma-kill her so that she can finally rest (and also avoid the inevitable madness that would ensue from her injuries). I love this dynamic between the two scholars.
    And then they sing the Rhythm of War together again, to send Raboniel off to the Beyond. Ow, the feels!
    ***
    Vargo is having a very emotional day. It’s sweet that he still feels Dalinar is a true friend.
    A note from Renarin: “I’m sorry.” And it’s accompanied by two gems worth of stormlight. 
    Vargo’s first thought is “What had the boy seen?” 
    He’s right to be afraid. You never want to get an apology from a precog. (Admittedly, I’m also coming at this as a member of the Worm fandom, where the main character gets a similar note from a precog at a pivotal moment, so maybe I’m reading more into this than I should.)
    Oh, right. It’s been long enough since I was in this story that I forgot about the Sja-Anat spren that were being delivered. It’s not just stormlight in there.
    Szeth’s father is dead, Ishar having killed him to reclaim his Blade. And now he wants answers from Taragangian.
    Taravangian is too dumb to manipulate Szeth… but it’s okay, because he asks for the wrong thing, which becomes reverse psychology, so the right thing happens. That’s quite the coup.
    Taravangian is on his deathbed, injured again by Szeth, and Odium is arriving. Feels like a suitably dramatic moment for something. 
    Wow. Go Taravangian! Nine parts dead, brain of the nine fools, and he still manages to slam Nightblood through Odium’s chest!
    What.
    WHAT??
    What the what? Vargo’s plot worked so well that he ascended as the next Odium? I did not see this coming at all.
    I am trying to type out my thoughts and keep getting stuck with inarticulate screaming. Gah!
    Okay, so, here’s what we’ve got. 
    Taravangian’s soul gets sucked into the vessel-shaped hole left by Nightblood eating Rayse.
    And it could only happen today, on his day of 100% passion, since that is what resonates with the Shard’s mandate.
    Taravangian is Odium. Gaaa! This could be very good or very, very bad, or more likely both at once, but this absolutely, fundamentally changes the game.
    And to think, two chapters ago I was feeling disappointed in the number of end-of-book reveals.
    Right now I’m wondering what Szeth noticed, if anything, from Nightblood suddenly devouring Rayse. We’ve seen before that Nightblood doesn’t retain memories from when it is drawn, so he won’t be able to learn what happened, but surely he noticed something going on. 
     
  24. ccstat

    Chapter 112

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 112 (Terms)
    Title: Are we really going to try making a contract with Odium now? I sure hope not. It doesn’t feel earned. Hopefully this is about the terms they will set with their allied Fused in the Tower.
    Icons: Betab. Patron of Elsecallers, also Wise and Careful. I’m going to hope it’s something to do with Rlain’s new Elsecaller status.
    Epigraph: This might be the first in-text confirmation that Odium is waging (or preparing to wage) a war beyond Greater Roshar. We’ve had Wit’s comments about preventing Rayse’s escape and limiting his ability to harm others, but nothing from Odium’s side to confirm that he actually has designs on the greater Cosmere. Obviously we know something about his plans due to WoBs over the years, but in-text citations are always better.
    ***
    Dalinar’s exhaustion is greater than expected, and leaves him vulnerable. I think Odium is going to approach him in a vision while he’s down for a rest.
    Odium didn’t even wait for him to lay down. As soon as he stepped through the door, it was all business. Will there even be small talk?
    Another addition to the list of swears! Thanks, Dalinar!
    It does seem as though Rayse’s self control is lacking. He barely keeps his anger at bay, and his image seems to match Wit’s description of his power and mind working at odds with each other.
    Odium thinks Dalinar has been getting coaching from Ishar. He can’t see Dalinar’s future, but this means he can’t really examine his past either.
    That’s a pretty skillful lie that Dalinar just came up with on the spot. Good work.
    Going to see Ishar wasn’t useful in itself, but it did let Dalinar bluff really well and provided great misdirection for Odium’s paranoia.
    Wait, when did Dalinar learn that Renarin was a blindspot? Looking back… it was in chapter 54 when Renarin apparently deduced it for himself and shared, plus in interlude 9 Taravangian told Szeth…though that meeting may not have been reported to Dalinar. I totally forgot that Renarin had figured it out and told Dalinar. I guess that’s what I get for taking so long to read this book.
    He immediately knows that Wit wrote the contract. He doesn’t seem to have much affection for the man, to put it gently.
    Okay, here’s clarification of sorts: Honor chained Odium to the Rosharan system and prevented him from using his power on most people. And if he breaks his word, he’ll be open to attack from Cultivation.
    The Everstorm somehow is beyond Rayse’s control, and he can’t agree to withdraw it. That’s weird. But let’s see where he’s going with it.
    This is remarkably similar to the Alethi concept of the Tranquiline Halls and the fate of those worthy warriors who die in battle. I wonder if that belief was directly engendered by the thrill or by Odium’s whispers. Or is it the case of glorifying something that used to be warned against?
    Odium’s proposal is exactly opposite to what Wit wants. “If I win, I go free of Roshar and leave you all here to rot.” That’s not great for the wider Cosmere.
    Good. Dalinar doesn’t trust Wit, but he also knows that Tanavast died to trap Odium here. He’s not going to just undo that.
    Woah, wait. This is a huge hint:
     
    So Odium has been playing a serious game from the start. He discovered Surgebinding on Ashyn, tricked the people there into exploiting it until the planet suffered the consequences, and proceeded to begin the same here on Roshar. 
    The spren copied this, and Ishar saw the danger of history repeating, so he limited surgebinding under some formalized ruleset. But surgebinding isn’t just the magic of Roshar or the Rosharan system, it is apparently an exploit of investiture at a fundamental level. It’s something that can be done on all shardworlds, as an enhancement of or as a distinct system from the magic that already exists there. And it’s powerful enough to kick off full-scale inter-system war. 
    Ah. Odium is scared because the Fused and the Radiant spren can now kill each other, and each death reduces the forces he will be able to bring to bear when he does eventually break free. He is in a hurry to settle this while both sides are at full power so as not to lose the one advantage he’s been banking on. Sadly, Dalinar doesn’t see this, not being aware of what happened at Urithiru.
    Ten days until Odium’s proposed contest of champions. I guess the epigraphs make sense: “Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days.”
    The terms if he loses are that Odium will keep his conquered lands and enforce an end to the war. I guess that explains how we get a timeskip between books 5 and 6. This will also let him send his agents through the cosmere.
    And if Dalinar loses he joins the Fused, immortal and subservient to Odium in all things. But at the same time, the end of the war is still enforced, with the difference that Alethkar and Herdaz are not returned. It’s clear that while Odium covets Dalinar, what he needs is to preserve his army of Fused and Radiants before they can destroy each other.
    Dalinar accepts, on the sound logic that if they lose the contest of champions then he’ll have to surrender anyway and the terms of that surrender will be no less restrictive than this win condition he’s negotiated.
    Wow. That is a very different set of terms than I would have ever expected Odium to agree to, and a lot more information about Odium’s past and plans than I thought we would be getting. Brandon does love his end-of-book reveals, doesn’t he?
     
  25. ccstat

    Chapter 111

    By ccstat,

    Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.
    Chapter 111 (Unchained)
    Title: Probably most intended as a reference to the Sibling, but I imagine it will be a broadly applicable theme.
    Icons: Quartet of Chach, Ishar, Palah, and Jez. Hard to speculate for Chach and Palah.
    Epigraph:
    How recent are we talking, here? I assume this is post-epilogue material, and El is aware that Urithiru was retaken and the Sibling revived. He really doesn’t think it matters, does he. I guess it’s a positive thing for him, since humans are resisting annihilation, and he was already arguing against exterminating the race. He doesn’t think there’s any chance at all that humans will come out the victors, though.
    ***
    Wait, before we get into this, does Navani’s revival of the Sibling and apparent healing of that whole Unmaking business mean that the tower’s suppression can immediately revert to blocking Void-powered abilities? That would make a dramatic and instant difference in the balance of power here. I almost hope that’s not the case, since it feels sort of like the frequently used “shoot the mothership to deactivate everything” trope in movies that often comes off as a cheap victory.
    Anyway, on to Dalinar, who is our first PoV.
    Oh. It was Dalinar who accepted Kaladin’s oath. I had that totally wrong. Makes sense, though. Bondsmith power!
    New swear construction for the list. Thanks, Dalinar!
    Dalinar immediately recognizes Ishar through their Connection. That’s the bondsmith’s domain, so it makes sense, but I also wonder if it’s partly to do with the way Ishar founded the nahel system. It’s more than any of the other Radiant orders have recognized of their own patron heralds. 
    Well, that’s a bit of an info drop. That’s not how imagined Ishar either, mostly going by the closed-eyed icon, but that’s neither here nor there. He was the one who saved humanity from Ashyn by discovering the path through Shadesmar. That’s a remarkable achievement, and it means that events happened very rapidly on early Roshar for him to have become a member of the oathpact. How swiftly did it become necessary to lock away Odium and his Fused?
    Ishar thinks he’s Tanavast, and that he’s the one meant to fight Odium’s champion? That’s more delusional than I was expecting.
    Apparently he is “Herald of Heralds, sole bearer of the Oathpact.” Not only that, he’s going to absorb Odium’s power and become reborn into a new incarnation of Adonalsium. I’m not going to say that he’s harmless, since he obviously has plenty of power and ability, but I will say that recruiting this guy sounds dodgy.
    Ishar reclaimed his own blade, and apparently it was the one that Szeth’s dad was entrusted. I’m not convinced that Ishar would need to do anything at all to Szeth’s dad in order to get the blade back, since I doubt it was actually unbound from him in the first place. But the Ghostbloods lost track of some honorblades and their wielders, so something might be up.
    ***
    The cremling is following their group. I guess we’ll find out if it’s actually possessed by a voidspren rather than being part of a sleepless. However, Timbre taking a chasmfiend taxi to reach Eshonai in the flashbacks gives some credence to the idea that the voidspren really are hiding in these cremlings.
    The Rhythm of Executions. Why do they even have that rhythm?
    Rlain asks for a spren. Timbre says he’s “already spoken for.”
     
    Okay, there’s quite a bit to unpack here. Yes, he gets one of Sja-Anat’s children. I was hoping for Unmade Sibling, but I guess we’ll go with semi-Unmade nahel spren from another order instead. I do still like his association with Renarin here, and bonding one of Sja-Anat’s children fits.

    The titles are interesting. Son of Thorns I like because it acknowledges both Dalinar the Blackthorn but also Renarin’s mother. (Whether that refers to Evi or Navani or both, I’m not sure. Probably Navani due to recent events, but who knows?) As for Bridger of Minds, that’s a fascinating one because until the recent alliance of convenience against the Pursuer, Rlain really didn’t do much to act as a bridge, being too much an outcast of both worlds. That title also suggests a role in connecting people or in pursuit of knowledge, which brings us to the last point:

    The spren’s speaking patterns are reminiscent of Blended and Ivory, suggesting that prior to their corruption by Sja-Anat they were an Inkspren. That’s certainly not conclusive, and I could be wrong entirely. Current guess, though, is that Rlain will be a weird Elsecaller in the same way that Renarin is a weird Truthwatcher.
    ***
    There’s a new word. “Skepping” is the act of quickly dismissing and resummoning the blade so that it passes through blocks. 
    Whatever else Ishar has lost, his fighting ability is still top notch.
    Ishar was average among the Heralds, Taln was the best. 
    Ah, the Stormfather’s warning is important. WIth his honorblade, Ishar is “a bondsmith unchained” by the rules of the nahel system he instated.
    The perpendicularity brings Ishar to his senses…almost. But no, the conclusion must be that Odium has corrupted the Stormfather.
    He’s trying to steal the bond to the Stormfather, and Dalinar’s status as someone opposed to Odium? That can’t be good.
    It almost works, except that Szeth chops through the theft with Nightblood. Holding Nightblood drawn in the middle of a perpendicularity has got to be making sword-nimi really happy right now.
    Ishar went to the Shin and revealed himself in order to get his Honorblade back. What did that do to Stone Shamanism to have a herald tell them the conflict wasn’t over? 
    Szeth doesn’t believe it, and Ishar elaborates:
     
    All of that is concerning. Given Ishar’s demonstrated grasp on reality I am not sure how much truth is in those statements, but it’s certain that Shinovar is worse off now than it was before Ishar and the Unmade visited.
    Nightblood chipped the Honorblade. That’s not surprising to those who know where it came from, but it’s a big shock to everyone here.
    Ishar has a brief moment of lucidity when Navani says her vow. He knows he’s insane, but he wants everyone to meet him in Shinovar to restore the Oathpact, provided they can restore his sanity at the time by having a whole bunch of Radiants swear their next oath in sequence to grant him lucidity.
    ***
    Okay, so the Voidlight is still present in the Sibling as a corrupting influence, but the Sibling’s nature and use of Towerlight has not changed. Navani is going to try to purge the Voidlight I guess?
    Okay, she can do it but she needs her scholars and the anti-Voidlight plate to make it work, and all of this will take time. Despite being driven back, Moash is not a solved problem, yet, that she can spend her focus elsewhere.
    Hm. I guess Moash fled and she really can focus on this problem now.
    ***
    Hm. So Ishar’s trick was to make their bodies and the ground Connected to the point that all their investiture flowed out to try to fill the ground. That’s a scarily effective ability.
    Apparently Ishar couldn’t do that before, because even without the restrictions of the nahel system he was limited by Tanavast. So how limited is Dalinar at this point? What enforces his restrictions?
    Well, that’s a whole can of worms we didn’t know about the Ashyn situation. Not only is Ishar the one who discovered how to escape, he seems to have precipitated the crisis that forced an escape to be necessary. It also appears that Odium was confined to Ashyn somehow, and trickery was necessary for him to escape to the wider Roshar system.
    This explains why the Oathpact was immediately recognized as a necessity. The survivors from Ashyn knew that Odium would cause the same destruction to Roshar if he wasn’t checked. So somehow they devised a way to consign him to Braize. I’m eager to learn the story of how that happened.
    Szeth is ready to graduate from following the Blackthorn to following his quest to the Shin. Set up for Stones Unhallowed? Storms, yes!
    Yes, sword-nimi, you destroyed a lot of evil this time. 
    What does Szeth have to do before he leaves? Is it something to do with Taravangian, because otherwise the meeting with Odium may not be engineered appropriately. What was it Ishar knew that unnerved Szeth? The thing about the Unmade? Something about his father? I don’t know.
    Dalinar: “I don’t know if Szeth or Nightblood are more insane.”
    Stormfather: “Neither do I, but Ishar’s got them both beat.”
    I wonder what they’ll actually get from Ishar. I don’t know that much of his writings will be useful or relevant or accurate, even if he did leave things behind.
    ***
    Adin again. I don’t know how I feel about returning to an interlude character in the main text (excepting the main throughline interlude, which in this case is Taravangian). The only reason to do so now would be to show off that Adin is actually getting a spren, or to do something with a commoner’s view. The former doesn’t feel worth taking space here, and the latter could be accomplished with someone else. This undercuts the use of the interlude chapters. Either take out Adin’s interlude, possibly pushing it into the main text (my preference) or skip this PoV now. 
    A bright spot in Alethi sexism, and a reminder that as brutal as their culture is, war is formalized and has certain rules around it.
    So can Kaladin lend his plate to other people? That’s neat and unexpected. I’m going to guess that other orders can’t do this. But see, this would have been a much cooler thing if it were the Moment of Awesome for Kaladin, separate from our first sight of living Plate. We definitely should have had the introduction to that from Jasnah first so that this could be special. 
    And yes, this PoV could have been anyone else rather than Adin. My vote would be Dabbid or Leshwi, personally. The superficial connection to Tien, where Kaladin gets to save a kid instead of watching them die, is only there in subtle reference and could be there just as much from another PoV.
    Huh. It didn’t take Navani long at all to purge the Voidlight and get everything functional. The Tower is alive again, and the suppression is working correctly. 
    Ewww. Suppressing the Deepest Ones while they are halfway merged with the floor does not go well for them.
    I’m hopeful that the Sibling can be more selective in the future and allow allied Fused to function in their halls. I’m not confident, though. What will happen with Leshwi? Best guess right now is that she and her entourage will ferry Venli and Rlain to the Shattered Plains to find the lost listeners.
    ***
    Ishar is doing autopsies/dissections? Are they … not singers, it appears. Apparently humans, but possibly Siah if their bodies become depigmented upon death? No, it is pale blue so probably a Siah Aimian. Or maybe just a Natan like Dalinar thinks.
    This other body, though, is weird. Should I recognize this? Oh, wait. Is it a Cryptic brought into the physical? It totally is. That description matches and is disturbing, but it is definitely what we’re seeing. 
    Yes, Stormfather agrees. It’s a Cryptic. And there are more. Cultivationspren… The first one must have been an honorspren, with the bluish skin. 
    Yes, Stormfather agrees again. Not only that, he recognizes the body as an honorspren he knows.
    Storms. I thought the reveal at the end of Way of Kings, with Taravangian exsanguinating people to harvest death rattles, was bad. This has the same shock value and greater atrocity. Ishar’s madness is worse than anyone expected.
    ***
    Moash’s Honorblade-granted abilities are unhindered, but his connection to Odium is suppressed by the revived tower, and, as anticipated, his passion comes roaring back. His pain and guilt return with a vengeance. 
    What did he run into and land on? The description makes me think he smacked into the cliff and then fell into a snowbank, but it could be something magical rather than physical. 
    Why did the Towerlight burn him? Was he too steeped in Voidlight to survive? That’s bizarre, since nothing like that happened to the Fused.
    He gets rescued by Heavenly Ones, and begins to heal. Odium steals his guilt and pain again, and his body mends…except for his eyes. He’s permanently blind. What does that mean for him going forward?
     
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