Seloun

He is (probably): (emphasis mine) That's certainly not Tien. It could be Dalinar, but Dalinar doesn't usually call Kaladin 'lad' (he does sometimes, but generally seems to prefer 'soldier'). The phrasing is just pure Teft - it's exactly what he'd say, the exact timing for when he'd say it - and it 'feel' better than any other options.

(emphasis mine) Jasnah for President. I love this passage, and the later one where she discusses proto-democracy, because it is such a good display of how atheist, logical reasoning arrives at morality. And in practical terms, it severely undercuts the rationale for the singers' war by potentially removing the concern of being made into slaves again.

This is an interesting observation. One thing that I've wondered about is why Shallan seems to have the geolocation Resonance, given that Lightweavers seem to have Memory as their Resonance (https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/93234-why-does-shallan-have-geolocation/). This seemed out of place since it appeared to be something Elsecallers had (Jasnah appears to exhibit it at the end of WoR) and none of the other Lightweavers are implied to possess it (Shallan's thoughts on it seem to suggest she's the only one). I initially suspected that Shallan might have somehow had a second bond with an Inkspren because of that passage. However, it might make sense if Shallan is actually Jasnah's squire, as well. The main iffy part is that Shallan's geolocation appears to be working by the warcamps on the Shattered Plains, which should be well out of range if the effect is similar to the Windrunner squires. It's possible that the squire thing doesn't work that way with Elsecallers, given that each order's squires do seem to operate somewhat differently, or the Resonance remains even if their out of the range for sharing the bond.

In that scene, Lirin is clearly feeling sorry for himself and exaggerating for effect. The rest of the scene - where he confronts the townsfolk - and a later scene helps clarify this issue some more, and discusses the very issue of moving away from the town: (emphasis mine) One sentence expressed in frustration isn't a perfect reflection of the situation. There's clearly some level of affection/respect between the townsfolk and Lirin. Leaving them is abandoning them; the fact that Lirin could easily find a job elsewhere speaks to the rarity of competent medical professionals. Even if they could somehow find another physician, what is the likelihood they would provide similar level of care for a similar cost? It's weird to say that helping the townsfolk is somehow putting Lirin's interest over his family's. You could argue that he's putting the townsfolk's interest over his family's (though even that is not quite so cut and dried) but it's not reasonable to simply ignore the benefit Lirin's services bring to the townsfolk. Regardless of whether or not Lirin has ulterior motives for staying (and again, this is far from obvious), his presence does benefit the townsfolk. Blaming Lirin for Tien getting conscripted is almost literally victim blaming. Let's be clear: the reason Tien gets conscripted is because of Roshone. Assigning responsibility for Tien getting conscripted to Lirin requires, among other things, for Lirin to have somehow expected conscription to occur in the first place. No one in town expected this: Lirin not specifically mentioning Tien with respect to the immunity from conscription is because he's surprised like everyone else in town, and he's working through the possible consequences in real time with the rest of the townsfolk. Suggesting that Lirin should have predicted that this was going to occur and pre-emptively move away is applying a ridiculous standard to Lirin. Here's a counterpoint: if this was so likely and predictable, why didn't Hesina already think of it and have discussed it with Lirin beforehand? Or did she also 'not consider Tien much at all?' There's a number of signs that Kaladin's desire for fighting is not quite as pure as it may seem at first glance: (emphasis mine) We can see in Kaladin's thoughts a bit of a slip - his thoughts are that he needs to train with Zahel to be able to beat the Fused, something which he's supposed to have moved on from. This is ultimately why Zahel ends up rejecting Kaladin. Kaladin's propensity for violence and his enjoyment of it are real potential issues and Lirin's concern about it is not unfounded. Lirin was out of line when he called Kaladin a monster. it turns out though that people get emotional and can say hurtful things to people they love. We recognize that love by seeing them make up and move beyond it; this is precisely what occurs after Hesina challenges Lirin to look at Kaladin's position. I covered this in the earlier post in the thread. To reiterate that post (and the main gist of this one as well): Lirin is not perfect, but to consider him significantly worse than any other character in the series require you to hold him to an absurd standard.

We can always hypothesize stuff outside of the text to interpret almost anything in almost any way (we can always imagine a yet-unseen secret plan). The real question here is if this has any textual evidence to support it. Unfortunately, the text seems to suggest Wit is very much trickable: Yes, you can argue that this is also somehow part of Wit's master plan - tricking Jasnah for some reason - but without some evidence in the text to back it up, the opposite theory (that Wit was in fact tricked) is no less likely, and arguably more likely by Occam's. Basically, if you think this is all a deep plot by Wit, there should be something in the text to support or at least imply a possible reading to support it. While it's always possible we'll find out later than this was a surprise master plan of Wit's, without some kind of foreshadowing, it ends up being a cheap trick. We know from Taravangian's interaction with Rayse that ancient beings aren't impossible to trick, and that they have blind spots based on their personalities and motivations. One thing that seems well established is that Wit personally dislikes Rayse to an immense degree and that he doesn't want Rayse to be able to leave the Roshar system. As far as Wit is concerned, he's already won by Rayse having accepted the deal, and his personal dislike causes him to rub it in Rayse's face. Consider: Wit was able to hide from Rayse just fine up to the contest; there's no reason to expect that he wouldn't have been able to continue doing. Instead, he essentially signs the terms of the contest to let Rayse know who exactly got the better of him, and adds a clause that would allow him to personally taunt Rayse. (emphasis mine) The irony is that Wit's comments about Rayse can apply to his own grandstanding. Wit making a mistake is foreshadowed in the text pretty well.

It's a little bit weird that in a book containing Moash and the literal embodiment(s) of divine hatred that a surgeon that does nothing but pro-bono work is so hated: I have to assume there's a bit of the uncanny valley effect going on here, where Lirin is so close to being a hero that his flaws end up standing out more than in someone more villanous. But let's not confuse 'not perfect' with 'evil scum'. Couple of refutations: 1) Lirin doesn't change: Of course he does. This is his entire arc in the book. That's what the shash face painting near the end is all about: Lirin may disagree with Kaladin's methods, but he's still able to support his son. Initially, he's unable to decouple those two things (where he thinks that by support Kaladin, he has to compromise his principles); learning that they are not intrinsically the same thing is the big realization for Lirin. It turns out Lirin is stubborn and self-righteous (so, basically Kaladin); he's also able to acknowledge being wrong given data and time: 2) Lirin is a bad father: So are all fathers...at least some of the time. Look at Dalinar's interaction with Adolin and Renarin, or Gavilar with Jasnah and Elhokar, or even more so, the Davars. it's just so weird to call Lirin unilaterally a bad father; I don't know who he is being compared to, but his parenting is actually very good, and Kaladin clearly calls back to the things he learned from Lirin (both actual lessons and just by osmosis): Kaladin is the Child of Honor, indeed. 3) Lirin is crazy for trying to make peace with the Fused! Except this is literally what Kaladin also does: One can make a very reasonable argument that the entirety of Kaladin's arc throughout the series is him becoming his father. First Ideal - Life before death: This is the essence of Lirin's morality. In a very real sense, no one embodies these particular Words better than Lirin. Second Ideal - Protect those that can't protect themselves: This is again what Lirin does, through medicine and surgery rather than a spear. There are a lot of ways of protecting people, and Lirin's version is to provide free medical care to people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it or have access to it. Third Ideal - Protect even those he hates: Check above quote about Lirin from Kaladin. Learning this is essentially the entirety of WoR for Kaladin. It's something he can't do at the beginning of WoR, but has to learn to progress, both as a Windrunner and just as a moral being. At the end of the scene, Kaladin decides that he could have killed Roshone. This is something he has to grow out of, as we see throughout WoR and (in his interactions with Roshone) in RoW. Fourth Ideal - Accept he can't protect everyone: This is something we see Lirin stress to Kaladin multiple times in his flashbacks. One quote (though there are many): The series from Kaladin's perspective is literally him becoming his dad. Who might be figuratively if not literally Honor. Basically, it's weird to hate Lirin when one considers that he's essentially Kaladin's Ideal. Is Lirin perfect? No. But it's easy to make an argument that, at his best, he's the best example of a moral person in the entire series.

Whimsy + Honor seems to perfectly describe Syl.

I actually thought RoW was a pretty significant improvement from Oathbringer, which I didn't enjoy very much. Not quite WoR level, but pretty close. (TWoK has a different feel from the other books in the series). I also thought RoW did a lot to rehabilitate Navani. I really disliked her characterization in previous books (especially Oathbringer) where she felt mostly extraneous. I wasn't a big fan of her scenes early in RoW, either, but her interaction with Raboniel was pretty good (though it's probably fair to say that Raboniel was more interesting). I admit I felt like the 'imposter syndrome' arc for Navani felt a bit overdone (is there anyone who doesn't have this as their primary failing? Jasnah, I guess) but I really liked her experimentation scenes. More than anything else, though, I felt like RoW had far more revelations than Oathbringer, and also a lot more questions. Oathbringer was in a lot of ways a wrap up of a lot of dangling threads from the first two books, and I didn't think it did it very well. RoW felt like it introduced a lot of new stuff, and getting more varied perspectives from e.g. Venli and the Fused was really good. Main issue I had with Shadesmar was that it felt very predictable/by the numbers, especially as soon as Adolin saved Notum. It was easy to visualize pretty much everything that was going to happen, up to Maya's testimony. Felt mostly important for plot development than character development. I recently did a re-read of Oathbringer since RoW brought up so many interesting new points, and I found that I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I did the first go around; the issues were still there, but I found that I had forgotten or missed stuff on my first read that made the book feel a lot better (the Kholinar sequence was still not great). I'd re-read TWoK and RoW many times, but I couldn't bring myself to re-read Oathbringer until RoW made me want to go back. Just noting that there's enough stuff in the books that it might age better on a re-read.

I think the draw is a likely conclusion, but in a way, the most obvious one. I see two other major alternatives: Hopefully Dalinar doesn't forget his appointment this time. But - if something does prevent either champion from being on time, what happens? This is probably similar to the 'draw' situation, but it's text from the books, and the wording is suspiciously close to Odium's below. Option 2: Odium is not incapable of breaking his word; it just has costs that Rayse!Odium is not willing to pay/risk. Taravangian, on the other hand, has zero compunctions about sacrificing himself to accomplish his goals; indeed, that is practically the essence of his character. So I think we need to look beyond the contract to see what Taravangian could potentially do by breaking the contract, but in a way that results in him achieving his goal anyway.

So, doing a re-reading of Oathbringer, I noticed the following passage: There are two important things to note here: first, Re-Shephir attempts to bond with Shallan. Second, it was a Lightweaver that trapped Re-Shephir. And we know that Melishi trapped Ba-Ado-Mishram. The general assumption, based on the WoR epigraph, was that this was something Bondsmiths could do: But perhaps it was not that Bondsmiths could trap the Unmade, but instead, it was something specific to Bondsmiths and Ba-Ado-Mishram specifically. We know that during the False Desolation, BAM was exhibiting Bondsmith-like Connection abilities. And we know how modern fabrial techniques trap spren: So it seems reasonable that trapping the Unmade required Radiants/Proto-Radiants that exhibited qualities that the Unmade would want to bond with; it's not actually just an ability Bondsmiths have, but Melishi could trap BAM because of their shared surges/fascinations/whatever actually drives nahel bond compatibility. Basically the spren is lured into trying to bond with someone, and gets sucked into the gem instead. We know that the means of killing the Heralds forever was inspired by what happened to BAM: It was weird why the singers would make Moash use the dagger to kill Jezrien; the only way that makes sense is if somehow Moash was the only person (that they could coerce/know about) who would be able to do this. Possibly something about Moash being effectively a failed Windrunner that might make him able to somehow bond with Jezrien's Cognitive Shadow. There's WoB that seems to indicate that a Cognitive Shadow could be bonded to a person: Potential Mistborn Spoilers If this is the case, then Mraize trying to get Shallan to use the dagger on Kalak takes an interesting turn. Could Shallan end up bonding Kalak instead? And what about Ishar? Edit: Another interesting quote:

So, Hesina's belief here is probably more religious than literal, but - what if there's some bit of truth to it? Perhaps there are spren associated with objects that people are attached to (a term which may be literal in this case). If so, this sort of 'coincidental' appearance might be associated with spren travelling through Shademar to get closer to the person they are bonded to. Sort of like how Radiants call spren to form Shardblades and Shardplate, maybe people are able to call other objects they are strongly attached to.

Taravangian actually pledges the Diagram to Odium: But the Diagram is dissolved by the time Taravangian kills Rayse: Arguably, Taravangian kind of played Rayse already by this point, since he specifically trades the services of the Diagram for Kharbranth, and not himself or specific members of the Diagram.

This is how I was hoping things will resolve themselves; I love the irony that this would represent. I certainly hope this comes into play. Note that the specific terms Odium agreed to are: (emphasis mine) So it could potentially apply to almost anyone. The wording also seems to imply that it can't be a 'naturalized' citizen, but it might apply to anyone born in Kharbranth, even if not specifically a citizen. It does explicitly say human, however. The biggest issue is that Taravangian is obviously aware of this oath (and it's unclear that anyone else knows about the specifics, although the Diagram people seem to know at least the general outline), he can see the future, and he doesn't seem to consider this to be a problem. Barring someone else who can see the future messing with his vision (Renarin, Cultivation, possibly Rlain), it'd be hard to justify this working. But it would be so elegant.

Just to make this clear, the theory seems to go like this: - At the last Desolation, Taln is the only one to die and return to Braize - But not too long ago, Pai gets executed, and if she's a Herald, there's now 2 Heralds on Braize - Pai!Herald more or less immediately gives up and comes back to Roshar, triggering the True Desolation We know that only one Herald has to give up to trigger the Desolation: The Stormfather not being aware of this doesn't seem to be a huge obstacle, since the Stormfather doesn't really have a direct Connection to the Heralds; specifically, he only knows of one when Dalinar asks about it in Oathbringer: One potential issue might be that we'd expect the Heralds to know - they feel Jezrien's death, for example, although that's an exceptional event. Then again, Kalak doesn't seem to know who survived in the prologue, so it's unclear if anyone would have noticed (especially if Palli just returned immediately): Another potential issue: We know that Palliah was the old ardent Shallan almost runs into in TWoK. This is not an insurmountable obstacle, as there's a lot of time between that point and Pai's execution in Kholinar, but their appearances don't seem to match. Lightweaving is a possibility, but presumably this would require either her Honorblade or having bound an appropriate spren. It's also possible that Pai is another Herald (Chanarach and Vedel appear to unaccounted for). Or that one of the Heralds that haven't been on screen all the time had died and also returned. But Pai's odd behavior and the fact that we know for sure she died (and the timing of when it happened) makes her a better candidate than 'some Herald we've never seen died off screen'.

If she hadn't died, Raboniel likely would have followed Leshwi's arc (i.e. joining the Listeners). Raboniel's primary focus isn't in winning the war (though that's her preference) but in ending it. She specifically mentions (or agrees) that she'd rather have the humans win if it meant the war would end than continue on with the war: The reason why she's focused on winning if possible is because of a false dichotomy - her assumption was that humans and singers could not coexist. This is the what the assumption that Stormlight and Voidlight being opposites and annihilating each other is supposed to represent. But Navani, and the actions of Leshwi, Venli and Rlain prove her incorrect in both accounts. The main reason why Raboniel wasn't interested in a negotiated peace was because she thought it was impossible, not because she wanted to win the war.

It's Dalinar who accepts Kaladin's 4th Ideal: (emphasis mine) It's easy to miss, but seems unambiguous.

So... - Adolin has an excellent sense of fashion. This is played almost for laughs, and yet... - Perhaps it's not a coincidence that he was the one that led the delegation to the honorspren, and ultimately the one that argued for their side. - Adolin's likeability seems almost supernatural - almost like a resonance. I'm on the Edgedancer train, so to speak. Though I do think that ultimately his bond with Maya will have to be 'inverted' like Glys for the recovery to work (humans may be too much Odium to power the radiant spren otherwise).

By the end of her arc, I don't think Raboniel would have been an antagonist in any practical terms. She initially believes that Stormlight and Voidlight are opposites, and any mixture will result in elimination (symbolic of how humanity and the singers can't coexist). Navani shows her this is not true - creation of Warlight is a metaphor for the similar 'mixing' between the humans and singers during their defense of the Radiants. It really wouldn't have made sense for her to continue as an enemy - she would likely be even more predisposed than Leshwi to look for another way. From a metaplot perspective, Raboniel probably literally knew too much. The way she offhand infodumps on Navani was pretty awesome, but at the same time makes things too easy. Same reason why the Heralds are surprisingly useless for Jasnah. In a way - Raboniel was too awesome to live.

I honestly found him pretty boring. He had no depth; he was just a thug with one quality he obsessed over for no real reason (granted, that is kind of the problem with most of the Fused, so he's probably representative). I do recognize that his role was necessary (not every Fused should be a special snowflake who is just misunderstood) but it didn't really make him interesting. He was almost literally the monster-of-the-week; nothing foreshadowing him before the book, probably will have zero impact going forward on anyone or any part of the plot, with the possible small exception of his demonstration of his surge.

How much of Raboniel lives on in Navani? I understand the sentiment - Raboniel can no longer grow, as herself - but she Obi-wan'd Navani perfectly. Even as her enemy. And the last narrative job of the mentor is to let their apprentice go do their thing.

Raboniel felt a lot like a Fused Jasnah (an older, wiser Jasnah). Which I felt was pretty appropriate - Navani has (had?) a serious inferiority complex regarding 'real' scholars, likely not helped by the fact that her own daughter has apparently surpassed her. It's not quite that simple, as their areas of focus are quite different - but it's likely quite painful thinking of yourself as being an amateur dabbler in your field when your daughter is essentially at the top of multiple fields. I actually like Raboniel quite a lot. She's a tragic character that is nonetheless in control, rather than just being buffeted by fate. Her attitude is, as mentioned earlier, not much different from Jasnah, and you could argue that Raboniel is actually more sympathetic than Jasnah. The way Raboniel looks for a technical/logical solution to help her daughter felt very Jasnah-esque, as did Raboniel's multi-level planning - looking beyond her personal desires (saving her daughter) and looking forward into the practical/political consequences of their discoveries.

Brightlight (Britelight?)

Pretty sure what Stargyle does is an analogue of Memory: (emphasis mine) The special thing that Shallan does that none of the other Lightweavers seem to do? This felt so out of place that I made a thread on it: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/93234-why-does-shallan-have-geolocation/ WRT Kaladin, however, it seems clear that there's some sort of connection (if not Connection) between him and Odium. First is his supernatural talent in combat - now that we know Honor + Odium = War, this feels a lot more telling. Also, Kaladin's passion is one of his main traits: Kaladin is certainly not the only one to exhibit passion, but he seems to exemplify it better than virtually anyone. One could also argue that he induces it better than anyone (both in his enemies and his allies) - people are in awe of him, in fear of him, inspired by him - no one is neutral when it comes to Stormblessed.

I understand where the objection is coming from, and I think they are generally applicable throughout the series at various points (though I think RoW was actually one of the better books in this regard - early WoR and I think Oathbringer overall were much worse in this regard). That said, I think this trivializes the progress Kaladin and Lirin's relationship makes within this book. The first thing to note is that the relationship needed to be worked on from both ends. The problem isn't just on Kaladin, and it's not just about Kaladin figuring out a way to deal with it. Indeed, the biggest changes occur on Lirin's side: Kaladin ends up getting the 'last word', so to speak, in the book, but much of the growth in this relationship is on Lirin's side. The event at the end, does feel rather glib and superficial, and it is, if you look at just that and not understand how much went into that decision. Basically, if you look at the development of their relationship from Kaladin's perspective alone, yes, it looks like the reconciliation was, if not unearned, somewhat easy. But if you look at it from Lirin's perspective (if he's the main character in their plot), I think it's easier to see how much of a struggle and change it represents. I think a great deal of this has to due with Kaladin being Lirin's son. If it had been someone who he wasn't so heavily invested in from the beginning, it would have been much easier for Lirin to adapt a 'live and let live' attitude. Having Lirin be able to step back and recover some of that objectivity is much of his development. It's not just the bonding between people due to shared stresses; Lirin has to recognize that there are wounds that Kaladin understands better than he does, and that Kaladin isn't his child/apprentice (even in the arts of healing) any longer. Instead, Kaladin is a peer - someone whose opinions may differ from Lirin's, but are no less valid, rather than a studen, who still needs to learn from Lirin's position. Again, this doesn't feel as pronounced from Kaladin's side since he's come to the this position throughout the entirety of the series (starting, essentially, from TWoK). But it represents a significant growth from Lirin's part.

In the end, Teft wins: To paraphrase another author - in the end, all of his pains have been made holy. There was meaning in the things he suffered; if Kaladin flew high, it was ultimately because people like Teft had carried him along the way. "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants,", indeed. And in the end, Teft recognizes it and is proud of what he's done - and lets Kaladin know. Teft is dead, but he lives on in the hearts of men.