Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive

Shallan and Wayne really need to meet up and compare notes.

As for the parshmen, there are supposed to be dozens or hundreds of different forms that they can take depending on what sort of spren they bond with, and if they don't follow certain prescribed steps, which one they get is unpredictable. The Parshendi all deliberately followed the steps to bond with a spren that would give them stormform, but for all the other parshmen scattered across the continent, it would likely be more of a crapshoot.

There's probably only so much voidspren to go around, though

I had never really considered that some of the Parshmen transformed by the Everstorm would probably not end up attuning to Stormform. I had been wondering if we would get an entire race of Always Chaotic Evil monsters to oppose the Radiants. Sanderson's antagonists usually have more nuance than that however, so I probably shouldn't have worried too much.

But then again, the real danger isn't the fact that Parshmen are discovering forgotten forms, it's that (some of?) those forms are susceptible to corruption by Odium. Hopefully, the Parshmen Kaladin is meeting can somehow resist Odium.

I also thought all Parshmen would become some sort of voidbringer but i´m glad they didn´t. Also i don´t think the spren that spotted Kaladin belongs to Odium because it´s described as yellow while Odium is associated with red. Probably no Radiantspren either since as far as i know no Parshendi has ever become a Radiant...

So, life on Roshar predates the Shattering, right? My understanding is that, unlike on Scadrial, Rosharans don't have a specific shard to thank for breathing life into them.

I wonder what makes it so that the Parshendi are associated with Odium and his Unmade. There is still so much we don't know about ancient Rosharan history.

There was one theory that the Parshendi were on Roshar first, then the humans came, and the Parshendi gave themselves to Odium to fight back (sort of like what happened at the end of Words, just on a larger scale). And there's a related theory that the Unmade were originally normal Parshendi who had their physical forms "unmade" so that they could just be Odium's super spren, but there's not as much evidence for that one.

The theory that the Unmade have preivously been Parshendi doesn´t work. We know the Unmade are Odium Splinters and that a Splinter was never human before (i´m just guessing that quote also counts for other sapients, since it makes no sense that humans are special in that regard)

It is interesting that they got rendered as the champion's shadows, though.

I'm wondering just who the champion is gonna be. First candidates to spring to mind are Eshonai and Adolin, but I think it's more likely it'll be someone we haven't seen before.

And those were some interesting chapters. "NO MATING". I've always felt Sanderson does a pretty good job writing relationships, and I'm glad this one looks to be coming along well. Then again, I just finished the Wheel of Time, so maybe I'm just glad for the change of pace.

Those parshmen's forms don't seem quite workform nor warform, but also not Voidbringers. I wonder if the Everstorm just awakened their capacity to bond with spren and they latched on to whatever was around? Definitely a possibility, I think.

And it's a tiny bit ironic that Shallan is unintentionally mildly classist while inwardly berating Adolin for being unintentionally mildy sexist.

Anyone else get the sense that unusual shadows may be of unexpected importance in the series? Aimians have shadows that point towards sources of light, and Jasnah's spren first manifested via her own shadow acting the same way, and then appearing before her along with several other shadows. Now we've got a glimpse of Odium's champion having nine shadows all pointing in different directions.

Chapter's out.

Perspectives are: Dalinar, Kaladin & Shallan.

Nice balance really.

Oh boy, Dalinar might have just done something, and I have no idea how he did it or if it was even him.

Kaladin's chapter was fantastic. I'm also noting a lot of Cosmere stuff this time around.

Pattern is the MVP for spren this time around.

“Mmm. Yes, very, very nice man. Wonderfully smart too.”

“Why don’t you marry him, then?”

Pattern buzzed. “Is that—”

“No that’s not an option.”

“Oh.” He settled down into a contented buzz on her coat, where he appeared as a strange kind of embroidery.

Also Shallan It will be hilarious if someone finds that jug in her rooms.

edited 3rd Oct '17 6:31:36 AM by 32ndfreeze

So it seems more a strange case of Copy Cat Murder than someone specifically trying to ape Adolin. Interesting.

Murders being repeated in the exact same way strikes me as something a spren would do. They have odd hangups, and I could totally see a rogue spren repeating murders identically because they thought it was interesting or something. It may even be a voidspren running around without a parshendi to bond to. Interesting, in any case.

All three of these were great. Kaladin being Kaladin and teaching a bunch of downtrodden slaves to take care of themselves, Dalinar dealing with yet another asshole monarch and fighting people with an ulterior motive, Shallan discovering a neat perk of Stormlight and actually living up to Veil.
\\ I wonder what it was that made Dalinar be able to hear his wife's name. It's gotta be either being released in some way from his oath of marriage by marrying Navani, or having broken past some Radiant barrier as indicated by his conversation with the ardent and using Adhesion on him (that's one of the Bondsmith surges, right?. And we keep getting more and more hints that there's something deeply, deeply wrong with Alethkar in a foundational way.

Oh shit, I didn't even think about that. It's got to be because he remarried. We know that the Nightwatcher doesn't play Literal Genie word games with boons and curses, so it's unlikely that it's a result of the logic that she no longer counts as "his wife" now that he's remarried or something like that, so it was probably a deliberate part of the deal that it only applies until he's remarried. That makes me think it's probably his curse, as I can't see him asking for that as part of his boon, but I still have no idea what his boon would be in that case. Unless it was to rid him of the Thrill?

Another great set of chapters, this one is probably my favourite one yet. The chapters kind of showed us three different Radiants being bound in different ways by their oaths.

Dalinar is compelled to unite the different kingdoms, but he seems to be hampered by his need to be brutally honest. Kaladin wants to protect the villagers of Hearthstone and the surrounding regions, but is also compelled to protect and help the now awakened parshmen. Shallan...is just being more Shallan. Lying through her teeth so much that it's hinted this might have some serious consequences on her psyche.

Dalinar remembering his wife's name is so deliciously subtle. I totally missed it until Dalinar did a double take, at wich point I furiously scrolled back up to check her name.

edited 3rd Oct '17 1:55:48 PM by GutstheBerserker

I wonder if Dalinar's little speech with Stormlight at the end might have been a application of his Tension Surge, which is said to affect the flexibility of things. Might be damn useful for a Diplomat

Wonderful all around. Dalinar's chapters are annoying me because of the way the ardents treat him. Hopefully it will get better after this chapter, but knowing religious zealots, they'll just start crying about how he's trying to poison his soldiers with lies and falsehoods. And yeah, remembering his wife's name was deliciously subtle. My first thought was that becoming a Bondsmith did it, but he still didn't remember her name at the start of this book, before he married Navani. Either becoming a Bondsmith has only been slowly fixing him, or it was the marriage that did it. Very interesting. Don't forget that he has always insisted that he knew both his boon and his curse, so I think if his curse had been something as blatant as the Nightwatcher telling him "you will forget everything about your wife Evi until you get remarried," it would have come up before now.

Shallan is both awesome and slightly horrifying. "Oh, hey, BTW, did I murder my entire family a while back?" Interesting note on lighteyes and their wines. I wonder how well-known that sort of thing is. Sure Shallan didn't know, but she's not a wine person. As for the copycat, my guess is that it's a smokeform Voidbringer testing out some new powers.

Kaladin slowly growing to understand that the parshmen are people too is nice. It's easy for readers to forget just how long the parshmen have been treated as animals—and with good reason, too. It's gonna take a lot to get the world past this. Most people would probably prefer to just enslave them again, though as Dalinar's chapters show, some people are willing to negotiate... except those negotiations appear to be led by Voidbringers. So. Anyway, I noticed that Kaladin didn't notice any rhythm to the parshmen speaking. Do they not have the Parshendi songs? Or maybe they just don't speak with the rhythm. Humans can listen to a song and speak without matching the rhythm, after all.

Maybe they're speaking in Alethi-rhythm?

So one thing that makes me uneasy is that the everstorm healed them. A good thing to have happen... so... why did it take the everstorm to do it? What was done to them, and how, and why did the evil hatestorm heal them? It almost implies to me that the horror was wrought with a power we're used to thinking of as being more benign...

Between the Thrill and the mind-gelding of the parshmen, I'm willing to bet there's something very fucky going on with Alethkar.

I'm also happy that characters in-universe are starting to point out how massively unhealthy Shallan's borderline dissociative personality disorder is.

That might simply be a case of compatible powers. Just like how on Scadrial some people can use gold Feruchemy to heal, but others can't. The parshmen were attuned to the Everstorm in some way, and it healed them just like most other forms of Investiture would have. The fact that this power comes from Odium is kinda just a footnote. If any of that makes sense.

Likewise, Gavilar implied in the prologue that the parshmen were created when one of the Unmade got sealed in a gemstone thousands of years ago. My guess would be that this particular Unmade was involved in the Hive Mind, and when it was ripped away from them violently, they lost their Connection and their Identity at the same time. The Parshendi, on the other hand, had hidden in dullform at the time, which doesn't have a Hive Mind, and then were able reestablish the Hive Mind after the danger had passed and they shifted forms.

Imagine it like this: Every parshman is connected to the internet. Someone dropped a virus that killed the entire internet in one fell swoop. A small group, however, had their computers unplugged at the time, so after the rest of the internet was destroyed they could just plug back in and have a smaller, but safe internet.

That's my theory, anyway.

And yeah, Alethkar is fucked up, but it seems like the parshmen and the Thrill have opposite causes. We know the Thrill is caused by the presence of one of the Unmade, while apparently the parshmen were created by the violent removal of one of the Unmade.

How do you figure? The parshendi had a piece of their Identity forcibly taken from them, but what's to say it has anything to do with the Unmade? Isn't their connection to Odium a later addition?

Wait, derp, didn't read all of your post.

edited 3rd Oct '17 2:58:04 PM by Ninety

I wonder when Dalinar's going to realize that the biggest hurdle towards uniting the nations of Roshar is himself. He was one of the three key leaders of the campaign to unite Alethkar, which they did by conquering all of the neighboring princedoms. Now, when he talks about uniting all of Roshar, the various heads of state assume he's planning to conquer them as well. Heck, Dalinar's a known admirer of the Sunmaker, a guy who once tried doing that exact thing.

Dalinar's mission is to unite the people and nations of Roshar, but does that necessarily mean he has to lead them? His internal monologue has repeatedly mentioned how he used to leave all the politics and planning to Gavilar while he just focused on winning battles, and how being a politician now isn't coming naturally to him. At some point, he may need to decide that, while he'll still be involved in the effort to unite Roshar and stave off the Desolation, he needs to have someone else take the lead, or at least be the face of their organization.

Of course, it would have to be someone who's experienced in managing affairs of state. Someone the other nations don't see as a threat. Someone who's already joined their cause. Someone who has recently united a shattered kingdom himself, without having to spill a drop of blood.

Someone like . . . King Taravangian?

It occurs to me that spren and Parshmen/parshendi, share more psychology with each other than they do with humans. Mostly it's the corpses thing. That and the fact they can, in the right conditions, become symbiotic.

Random thought: can you trap a Radiant's spren in a gemstone to keep them from blading and/or surging?

Dalinar is under the impression that leading the people is his divine mission. While he's backed off that a bit following revelations about the status of the Almighty and the reason he got the visions in the first place, it's still stuck with him. Just in this chapter, he realizes "Oh right, I guess I probably won't be personally dueling the champion." Handing off the responsibility to someone else is a possibility, but it's been lampshaded several times that he doesn't like to do that. Sadeas interpreted it as jealousy for Gavilar, but the simple fact is that Dalinar has agreed to do the job, so he'll do the job. And he is making progress with the other nations, just slowly. Like here, he discovered the specific reason the Iriali don't like him and brought up the possibility of resolving it.

Not sure what you mean by the corpses. Yeah, Syl hates Shardblades, but Pattern has thought about it and decided the whole thing is kinda funny in a scholarly way. It doesn't seem to be a universal rule that spren respect corpses in the same way the parshendi do.

As for trapping a Radiant spren... unclear. We don't even know how the trapping works yet. It might be like an animal trap, where it shouldn't work on someone intelligent.