History Literature / RhythmOfWar

* DieHardOnAnX: Die Hard in [[spoiler:Urithiru]]. Kaladin mounts a one-man resistance against the occupying singers, without the aid of most of his Radiant powers, and only with the aid of Navani providing resources and intelligence and [[spoiler:the Sibling providing places to hide and a means of communcation with Navani.]]

* OhCrap: When Ruthar realizes his drunken rant about the state of Alethkar (an atheist queen speaking to generals, a former highking who indulges in feminine things like reading and writing) is audible to ''everybody'' present, he shuts his mouth instantly, but far too late as the room had gone silent.

** Soulcasters are [[spoiler:spren locked into a metallic shape, much like Shardblades or Shardplate. Unlike Shardblades, they seem to be at peace with their state and are unresponsive in Shadesmar.]]
** [[spoiler:Restares, the reclusive leader of the Sons of Honor, is actually the Herald Kalak.]]
** [[spoiler:Thaidakar, the still unseen leader of the Ghostbloods, is from another world and is suffering from a similar problem as the Heralds. Also, given comments from both Mraize and Hoid, he is ''strongly'' hinted to be [[Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy Kelsier.]]]]
** [[spoiler:Pattern is the second Cryptic Shallan bonded. She killed the first as a child when she forsook her oaths.]]
** [[spoiler:The Radiant spren agreed to the Recreance and accepted the consequences.]]
** [[spoiler:Cultivation gave Taravangian his boon and his curse so he would be able to replace Rayse as Odium's Vessel.]]

* RevengeBeforeReason: "The Pursuer" is a Fused who will hunt and kill any human who kills him with absolute, single-minded focus. This has apparently caused major problems in the past, but the Nine continue to accommodate his quirks.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: We have been told before the King's Wit is a weapon. Jasnah knows how to wield him. As part of [[BatmanGambit a larger political game]] she provokes Ruthar into calling her a godless whore in public, then has Wit absolutely ''tear into him'' in order to provoke a duel. Judging from the tone during and after the speech, Hoid, more often irreverent at worst, truly hates the things he mentions about Ruthar and actually does consider him to be garbage. Worth reproducing in its entirety.
-->'''Wit/Hoid:''' [[DrivenByEnvy I see you're envious of those more skilled in the masculine arts than you, Ruthar.]] I agree, you could use lessons on how to be a man—but those in this room would teach lessons far too advanced. Let me call in a eunuch to instruct you, and once you've reached his level, we'll talk further.\\
'''Jasnah:''' Harsher.\\
'''Wit/Hoid:''' You speak of honor, Ruthar, though you’ve never known it. You’ll never find it though. You see, I hid your honor in a place you could never find it: in the arms of someone who truly loves you.\\
'''Jasnah:''' Wit. ''[[TranquilFury Harsher.]]''\\
'''Wit/Hoid:''' I've been speaking to your children, Ruthar. [[SincerityMode No, this part]] [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness isn't a joke.]] Relis, Ivanar. Yes, I know them. I know a lot of things. Would you like to explain to the queen where Ivanar’s broken arm last month ''truly'' came from? Tell me, do you [[DomesticAbuser beat your children]] because you're a {{sadist}}, or because you're a [[DirtyCoward coward]] and they are the only ones who won't dare fight back? Or... oh, silly Wit. It's both, isn't it?

* BoringButPractical:
** The first airship is essentially a large floating platform that travels at about five knots and requires a ton of manpower and effort to use at all. But it does still ''fly''.
--->'''Navani:''' Five knots. Not particularly fast, compared to your best ships.\\
'''Kmakl:''' Pardon, Brightness. But this is essentially a giant barge--and for that five knots is impressive, even ignoring the fact that it is ''flying''. This ship is faster than an army marching at double time--yet it brings your troops in fresh ''and'' provides its own mobile high ground for archery support.
** Lirin thinks that since Radiants can heal with magic, surgeons like himself are obsolete. Kaladin points out that Radiant healing is limited by Stormlight, can only heal relatively recent injures, and there are only a bit over fifty Radiants capable of healing (mostly Edgedancers plus three Truthwatchers). Plus most of the Radiants' time is taken up in the war effort, so only the worst injures are treated by them. Even without the war going on, conventional medicine will still be needed both for injuries Radiants don't have time to treat as well as old wounds and chronic illnesses.

** The Ddadeyed spren, the ones who make up Shardblades, were already considered this - alive and mobile but not living. [[spoiler:Adolin - and his blade, Mayalaran - proves that they can recover at least some of their faculties. By the end of the story, Shallan is nurturing Testament on the road to recovery as well.]]

** In the epigraphs of Part 2, [[Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy Harmony]] notices that Wit [[spoiler: seems more afraid of Rayse than Odium, and that this could cause problems, since the Shard is WAY more dangerous than its Vessel. He also says that they should most fear "a combination of the Vessel's craftiness and the Shard's Intent." Sure enough, Taravangian kills Rayse and becomes even more dangerous than before]].

* YouMonster: [[spoiler: Rlain says this if Venli when [[InternalReveal she tells him how the rise of the Regals and Fused is her fault]]. All things considered, [[IAmAMonster she agrees]].]]

* EthicalSlut: Veil implies she's rather loose, and in particular is more openly bisexual than Shallan. Of course, since she's SharingABody with Shallan, who is married to Adolin, she's probably not ''actually'' sleeping around.

** In addition, there is another way to kill [[spoiler:true spren, via physically transporting them out of the Cognitive Realm into the Physical. Some, like Hhnorspren, have bodies close enough to Physical creatures to survive for a while, but others like Cryptics will die instantly because their bodies just cannot function in the Physical Realm.]]

* RomanticAsexual: [[WordOfGod Word of Brandon]] previously established that Jasnah is asexual - she's not against physical affection for a partner's sake, but isn't interested in sex herself. However, we see in this book that she is not aromantic, and even see her with her current partner - [[spoiler:Wit, a.k.a. Hoid, who is unique among her prior suitors because he doesn't mind and even enjoys her questions and intellectual nature.]]

* AncestralWeapon: The entire series treats shardblades this way, but Venli's flashbacks reveal that the Listeners treated ''steel'' weapons with such reverence.
* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: [[spoiler: The Sibling says that if Raboniel fully corrupts them with Voidlight they'll become one of the Unmade.]]

** During experimentation with the various lights, Navani discovers [[spoiler:a literal example of this trope, as she finds a way to cancel out the vibrations of a given Light through sound, and is able to generate anti-light by mixing this process with light trapped in a vacuum. Like antimatter, this anti-Light cancels out existing investiture, and is capable of actually killing otherwise immortal beings like Fused and spren.]]

** This is most pronounced for Bondsmiths. While it was revealed in ''Oathbringer'' that there were only ever three Bondsmiths at any one time, we learn ''which' three this time around. [[spoiler: the Stormfather, the Sibling, and the Nightwatcher.]]

* AskAStupidQuestion: Jasnah is going to free all the slaves in Alethkar [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste now that the war has given her the opportunity.]] Dalinar is a bit schocked and asks if this includes the Ardents. She simply asks whether Ardents are slaves. She then goes on to explain that while their status was originally to avoid the rise of a CorruptChurch they have managed to work their way into politics anyway. She'd rather have them where she can see them.
* AsLongAsThereIsOneMan: Kaladin becomes the symbol of this [[DieHardOnAnX during the occupation of Urithiru.]] In fact this is a major bone of contention between him and [[SuicidalPacifism his father:]] Lirin is concerned ([[JerkassHasAPoint correctly]]) that untrained civilians will try to rebel against Regals [[DoomedMoralVictor and not only be slaughtered but call down harsh reprisals.]]

* BadassNormal: Adolin. He was always a good fighter, but he has always had [[PowerArmor blade and plate.]] In this book he is forced to fight twenty men without the benefit of either, alone except for a barely functional Maya. He still wins.

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: The Three- Shallan and her two other personalities- have distinct hair colors: Radiant is blonde, Veil is brunette, and Shallan is redhead. Invoked, as Shallan does this deliberately so others can easily tell who she is.
* BodyHorror: When Dalinar inspects [[spoiler:Ishar's camp]], he finds strange dead bodies in the tents. Some of them look human while others seem to be strange fleshy masses. It turns out on closer inspection that [[spoiler: these are ''spren'' who have somehow been moved from the Cognitive Realm to the Physical Realm. Some spren are close enough to human to be able to survive in the Physical Realm for a short while, but others have bodies so different from Physical life that they collapse and die instantly.]]

** Lirin thinks that since Radiants can heal with magic, surgeons like himself are obsolete. Kaladin points out that Radiants healing is limited by stormlight, can only heal relatively recent injures, and there are only a bit over fifty Radiants capable of healing (mostly Edgedancers plus three Truthwatchers). Plus most of the Radiants' time is taken up in the war effort, so only the worst injures are treated by them. Even without the war going on, conventional medicine will still be needed both for injures Radiants don't have time to treat as well as old wounds and chronic illnesses.

* BroughtDownToBadass: The Fused use a Fabrial to negate Kaladin's powers. All this really does is make him pause for a moment before he kills them normally. The Fused he kills in the encounter even insists that the device must not have worked. [[spoiler:Later, this same effect is applied to all of Urithiru, knocking out most Radiants except Kaladin and Lift.]]

* BroughtDownToNormal: The expedition into Shadesmar. Adolin has no Blade and Plate and once the Stormlight runs out, the Radiants lose all their powers.

* TheBusCameBack: It turns out [[spoiler: Thude and other listener dissenters]] have not died at the end of ''Words of Radiance'' and Venli meets them again.

** The honorspren have been trading with [[spoiler:[[Literature/MistbornSecretHistory the Ire]], and have a jug containing investiture, similar to what Ire was using on Scadrial.]]

* ChekhovsGun: A sphere filled with strange black light that Gavilar tells Szeth to hide in the prologue to ''Literature/WordsOfRadiance'', appears again, having been retrieved by Szeth, and Navani begins to study it. With unexpected results.

* DieHardOnAnX: Die Hard in [[spoiler:Urithiru]]. Kaladin mounts a one-man resistance against the occupying Singers, without the aid of most of his Radiant powers, and only with the aid of Navani providing resources and intelligence and [[spoiler:the Sibling providing places to hide and a means of communcation with Navani.]]

* DisappointedByTheMotive: Shallan is not impressed when Mraize tell her his true motive: Power. She's slightly more interested when she finds out that he means literal power, finding a way to export Stormlight from Roshar when it's normally bound to the system, but still.
* DomesticAbuse: Gavilar was never physically abusive to Navani, but he was emotionally abusive every time they were alone together. At one point he deliberately invited a famous artifabrian, a man who Navani would love to speak to, to a party- only to make sure that she'd be too busy to have a chance.
* DramaticIrony: By the end of the story, [[spoiler:none of the characters know that Taravangian had ascended and become Odium. As a result, only the readers understand how much danger Dalanar and the others are currently in. Fortunately Odium has already agreed to a contest of champions, limiting what he can do until the terms of the agreement are fulfilled one way or another.]]

* FateWorseThanDeath: The Sibling [[spoiler: considers being corrupted this trope. They won't become a deadeyes if fully tainted with Voidlight, they'll become an ''Unmade''.]]
** The Fused who [[spoiler: [[HeelFaceTurn side with the Radiants in the end]] are still bound by Odium's power. Unless something happens to save them he'll condemn them to eternal torture in [[FireAndBrimstoneHell Damnation]] next time they die.]]

** Throughout the earlier books, Taravangian has been keeping up very well, considering his age. In ''Rhythm of War'' he starts deteriorating--suffers from dizziness spells whenever he stands up, his joints are painful and he has to climb onto a chair.

* FlyingBrick: Windrunners are always close, but become this trope upon achieving the Fourth Ideal, providing them with super strength and making them NighInvulnerable, courtesy of [[spoiler: their living Shardplate]].

** In the last stage of [[HumanityOnTrial Adolin's trial]] Maya is called as a witness to drive home to the audience the truth of the Recreance and what it did to the deadeye spren. It does. The prosecuter's self-righteous and cruel posturing not only alienates the audience, [[spoiler: it drives Maya to finally speak and proclaim the truth: The Recreance wasn't a betrayal, all the spren knew they might die and volunteered anyway.]]

* HumanityOnTrial: The fundamental conflict in Adolin's thread of the plot. The Honorspren have largely turned on humanity for the actions in the Recreance, although there are a group of renegades who have re-bonded, and some in the fold who aren't totally sure about the current stance. Adolin volunteers to be tried to make them reconsider, and though he specifies that he will only be tried for his own actions it rapidly escalates to this.

** The Pursuer, after spending the entire novel being an arrogant, self-obsessed, petty bully, [[spoiler: gets soundly trounced by Kaladin in front of a crowd of singers and humans, ending up fleeing in terror, effectively destroying his status as a fearsome ImplacableMan. When he comes back to try and kill an emotionally destroyed Kaladin, Kaladin snaps from catatonia into berserker fury and ''brutally'' kills the Pursuer's body. Then he reincarnates in front of a superior who first taunts him for his failure and then uses him to try out a new weapon, one that finally kills him DeaderThanDead.]]

* ImmortalBreaker: Nightblood, which is able to destroy ''anything'', even Fused. [[spoiler: Or a Shard's Vessel.]] Additionally, [[spoiler: by the end Navani and Raboniel have discovered the secrets of Antilight. This gives a method to kill both Fused and True Spren, leaving both sides of the war ultimately mortal.]]

* IWishedYouWereDead: Following yet another bitter argument with Gavilar, Navani even burns a prayer, wishing for his death--and he is killed several hours later. Navani feels a pang of guilt and then starts rationalizing that it could not have been Almighty for once listening to her prayer.

** Moash lies, telling Navani that her son begged for his life like a coward. Ehlokar hadn't even noticed Moash, who snuck up and stabbed him from behind. Not to mention [[spoiler: ''killing Teft'']], even Moash regrets that one after his ability to feel emotion is briefly restored. Also, [[spoiler:during his fight with Teft, he casually murders an unconscious Radiant because Teft keeps trying to maintain his distance from Moash's Blade.]]

** In addition, there is another way to kill [[spoiler:true spren, via physically transporting them out of the Cognitive Realm into the Physical. Some, like Honorspren, have bodies close enough to Physical creatures to survive for a while, but others like Cryptics will die instantly because their bodies just cannot function in the Physical Realm.]]
** [[spoiler:Kelek]] explains how Jezerien was killed in the last book. The knife was supposed to imprison him in the gem, the same way spren can be trapped, but it killed him instead because he's a Cognitive Shadow kept anchored to the world of the living with a bond, and trapping him in the gem severed said bond. Without the bond, he faded into the Beyond.
** [[spoiler: Teft, Raboniel, the Pursuer, and Rayse are all permanently killed in Part Five. The first is killed with Jezerien's Honorblade after killing his spren with a Raysium dagger, the second two are killed using [[AntiMagic anti-Voidlight]], and the last with [[ArtifactOfDoom Nightblood]]]].

* LastOfHisKind: Venli and Rlain start the novel on opposite sides and both believe themselves to be the last of the Listeners/Parshendi after the Everstorm converted the rest into Fused. [[spoiler: They're wrong. The thousandish dissenters Thude led away late in ''Words of Radiance'' survived their journey across the Shattered Plains.]]
* LetNoCrisisGoToWaste: A rare heroic version. Jasnah is using the current Desolation to force through social reforms to address [[VillainProtagonist Alethkar's various issues]] that would never fly under ordinary circumstances. Examples are [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil abolishing slavery]] and relaxing [[FantasticCasteSystem the Vorin caste system,]] and doing away with honor duels. She even mentions [[{{Cincinnatus}} becoming the last queen of Alethkar]], at the very least implementing some sort of constitutional monarchy rather than the absolute one currently in place.
* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: Over the intervening year, the battles between the Windrunner Radiants and the ''shanay-im'' Fused have become increasingly ritualized and duel-like: They fight one-on-one duels with any extras on either side hanging back and waiting their turn, and wounded on both sides will often be allowed to disengage. When challenged on this by Dalinar, Kaladin points out that the ''shanay-im'' generally outnumber the Windrunners and can replace their losses far more easily, so playing along with these rules helps the Windrunners more than the Fused.

** Dalinar can open a Perpendicularity at will, infusing gems and Radiants nearby with a massive amount of Stormlight. It gives his Radiants a huge advantage, as renewed Stormlight mid fight allows them to outlast enemy Radiants or the Fused who go through Voidlight far slower.

* MasterOfOneMagic: The Fused are this, in contrast to Knights Radiant. While Radiants each have access to two surges (along with a unique power that's the result of both), the Fused command a single surge. However, they're able to call on their surge's lesser abilities without draining Voidlight. For example, a Windrunner must constantly expend Stormlight to stay airborn, while Heavenly Ones can float a low speed indefinitely.

** Navani is unable to turn back Rabonial's corruption of Urithiru [[spoiler: until she bonds The Sibling, becoming the second Bondsmith]].
* NotQuiteTheRightThing: [[JerkassHasAPoint In almost any war Lirin would have many strong points supporting his absolute pacifism.]] Alethkar's endless wars have devastated civilians for generations simply to enrich callous nobles, and he has had to patch together many people [[ShellShockedVeteran who have returned from war changed, crippled, and shell-shocked.]] And Alethkar, being a strict theocratic monarchy [[FantasticCasteSystem with a strong caste system,]] doesn't even provide any rights to a common person that are really worth dying for. The occupying Singers are even, on average, somewhere between the same as or [[AffablyEvil slightly better than the Alethi Nobility]]. Not to mention that they're [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters arguably]] in the right as humans stole Roshar from them even after the Listeners tried to help them. Of course [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint this isn't a normal war and surrender isn't an option]]. Even if the Singers and Humans could find peace, [[GodOfEvil Odium]] has no interest in such an arrangement, and Odium explicitly tells Taravangian that after he takes control of Roshar he plans to use both humans and listeners as soldiers in his plans to conquer the rest of the Cosmere.

** [[spoiler: Kelek implies that Melishi's imprisonment of Bo-Ado-Mishram was this to an even greater degree than we already knew. Quite aside from the way it lobotomized the singers, Kelek indicates it in some way damaged Connection all across Roshar, and he seems to indicate that this sealing is responsible for spren going deadeyed when their Oaths are broken.]]

** Correspondingly, the Fused and Radiant Spren are far closer to mirror images than they'd prefer to admit. The conflict of the Desolations is eternal precisely because neither the Fused nor the Spren ever die, merely finding a new mortal of the corresponding type to pair with and return to the fight.

* OhCrap: When Ruthar realizes his drunken rant about the state of Alethkar (an atheist Queen speaking to generals, a former high king who indulges in feminine things like reading and writing) is audible to ''everybody'' present, he shuts his mouth instantly, but far too late as the room had gone silent.

** The Deadeyed spren, the ones who make up Shardblades, were already considered this - alive and mobile but not living. [[spoiler:Adolin - and his blade, Mayalaran - proves that they can recover at least some of their faculties. By the end of the story, Shallan is nurturing Testament on the road to recovery as well.]]

* OpposingCombatPhilosophies: There are now enough Fused and Knights Radiant that fundamental differences between their combat styles have emerged. Each Knight Radiant is a RedMage with two surges, a shard weapon and fast healing in addition to their order's powers. The Fused lack shard weapons and possess single surge, but [[MasterOfOneMagic have thousands of years of experience using it]] to the point that they can use some of the surge's abilities without expending Voidlight. Additionally, DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist for the Fused, so they tend to be far more aggressive than Knights Radiant. After all, a dead Knight Radiant stays dead (though their spren can bond with another worthy individual, like a Radiant squire), but a dead Fused will steal a new body when the Everstorm rolls through in a few days.
* PartingWordsRegret: Navani has a spark of this in the prologue when the realization that Galivar is dead truly sinks in--their last talk was a fight and she [[IWishedYouWereDead made a prayer for him to die]] immediately afterwards.

* RabbleRouser: A heroic example, with Notum, who is supposed to testify against Adolin [[BewareTheHonestOnes finding himself unable to go through with it.]] Instead he begins loudly proclaiming that [[RousseauWasRight Honor is not dead so long as he lives in the hearts of men]] and winds up starting a riot.

** [[spoiler:Anti-light can also be created by finding the tone that cancels out the respective tone of the light. Interestingly, to humans, the tones are the same, though Listeners can detect it. The combination of a light and its opposite can be explosive - and also can kill a spren or other cognitive splinter attuned to that light.]]
** [[spoiler:Metal and color, keys in other systems of investiture, affect stormlight as well, and in parallel ways - for example iron can be used in fabrials to create attracters, and it's theorized that another metal - likely steel - can be used for repelling fabrials. Color also affects stormlight in certain ways, and is one of the reasons why Stormlight stored in different-colored gemstones have different effects with Soulcasters.]]

** [[spoiler:Pattern is the second Cryptic Shallan bonded. The first she killed as a child when she forsook her oaths.]]

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: We have been told before the King's Wit is a weapon. Jasnah knows how to wield him. As part of [[BatmanGambit a larger political game]] she provokes Ruthar into calling her a godless whore in public, then has Wit absolutely ''tear into him'' in order to provoke a duel. Judging from the tone during and after the speech Hoid, more often irreverent at worst, truly hates the things he mentions about the person and actually does consider them to be garbage. Worth reproducing in its entirety.

* RousseauWasRight: This is actually a motto among a political faction of Honorspren. "Honor is not dead so long as he lives in the hearts of men."

* ScientificallyUnderstandableSorcery: [[spoiler:Navani ends up proving that stormlight/voidlight/lifelight are quantifiable via TheScientificMethod.]]

* SpellMyNameWithAThe: The Sibling, along with the previously introduced [[spoiler: Bondsmith]] spren, The Stormfather and The Nightwatcher.
** The Pursuer, to a lesser extend. He has a real name, but is only ever referred to as, "The Pursuer," after Part One.

* SuicidalPacifism: Lirin sticks to his pacifism even in the face of literal demons. He is basing this on his experience with all previous wars, in which nothing changes except that the common people suffer and die for the glory of their leaders. And he fails to appreciate that this war, with one side backed by the Shard of Hate, is fundamentally different. That said, he is just a surgeon, barring a few exceptions, it's not really clear what people expect him to be doing differently.

** [[TheArchmage Jasnah]] is not very good at swordfighting. Being a woman who lived in a society where only men were supposed to fight, she never got the years of training and experience Lighteyed men get. Fortunately in battle her Blade, Plate and Radiant powers more than make up for it, and she's able to win her duel against [[spoiler: Ruthar]] anyway by [[CombatPragmatist attacking him while]] [[WouldNotHitAGirl he's distracted complaining about having to duel a woman.]]

* ThereIsAnother: Venli and Rlain are each surprised to discover that they aren't the last living Listener. [[spoiler: They eventually find out that the dissenters who departed Narak shortly before the Everstorm hit survived their flight.]]
* ThisMeansWar: Once Shallan finally [[spoiler: breaks with the Ghostbloods for good Mraize says that this is a declaration of war. [[BringIt She is unimpressed,]] and tells him [[IronicEcho she looks forward to the hunt.]]]]

* TitleDrop: ''Rhythm of War'' is the title of the research journal (on the relationship between different forms of investiture and the Singer rhythms) co-authored by Navani and Raboniel. The Rhythm of War is also a Singer rhythm [[spoiler:made by harmonizing the Pure Tones of Honour and Odium.]]

* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: Elhokar's son, Gav, is just five years old but everyone notices that he is solemn and serious beyond his years. And he wants to learn to fight, because, as he tells Navani, he wants to find the man who killed his father and kill him. Navani and Dalinar are justifiably worried about him.

* WarRefugees: The war in Herdaz against the singers and Fused has been dragging for a year and as a result, many civilian flee to Alethkar--which has been conquered by the singers and is therefore much ''safer''.

* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: The Fused. Odium gave the Fused surgebinding powers and a form of immortality. This made them terrifying foes during the Desolations, but four thousand years on [[PhysicalHell Braize]] has left most them completely bonkers.
** The Singers even have a name for "the lost ones," Fused who stare into space when not given explicit instructions.

** Zahel challenges Kaladin to prove his sword skill by just ''trying'' to land a sword blow on him without using surgebinding, in the middle of a laundry yard. Then he spends the whole fight using sheets and cloth in strange ways to confound Kal's swordsmanship. Kaladin can tell that Zahel isn't Surgebinding, but he strongly suspects there's something weird going on that he doesn't know about. Readers familiar with the wider Cosmere should immediately realize that he's using [[{{Literature/Warbreaker}} Awakening.]]

** Lift's bizarre differences from other Radiants is finally explained: [[spoiler: She is a Radiant, but one created specifically by Cultivation, and she draws her power not from Stormlight but Lifelight.]]

** Mixing [[spoiler:Voidlight and anti-Voidlight, or Stormlight and anti-Stormlight]] creates an explosion not unlike [[spoiler:antimatter meeting matter]].
** Warlight, the unlikely fusion of [[spoiler:Stormlight and Voidlight, discovered by Navani and Raboniel harmonizing two of the Pure Tones of Roshar together in the titular Rhythm Of War.]]

* YouWillKnowWhatToDo: Played with. Mraize says this to Shallan when sending her to track down a certain person and upon finding them she discoverers that he is actually [[spoiler: the Herald Kelek]]. Shallan contacts Mraize, to berate him for the lack of direction and say the she has ''no clue'' what to do. He responds that she in fact knew exactly what to do: contact him for further instructions. [[ManipulativeBastard It's one more way in which he is manipulating Shallan into accepting his authority.]]
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Venli and Eshonai's flashback chapters reveal that Singers mature much faster than humans, reaching adulthood around age ten. Venli has been an adult since the prologue, putting her in her late teens during this book.

* BodyHorror: When Dalinar inspect [[spoiler:Ishar's camp]], he finds strange dead bodies in the tents. Some of them look human while others seem to be strange fleshy masses. It turns out on closer inspection that [[spoiler: these are ''spren'' who have somehow been moved from the Cognitive Realm to the Physical Realm. Some spren are close enough to human to be able to survive in the Physical Realm for a short while, but others have bodies so different from Physical life that they collapse and die instantly.]]

* HeroKiller: The Pursuer playacts at this, but is mostly a coward. Vyre is the real deal, with the highest personal body count of named characters in the series.

* CapturedSuperEntity: While we've known that modern fabrials were powered by spren imprisoned in gemstones for a couple of books now, it becomes a major plot point in this book due to the Sibling objecting to the practice. It's still unclear (in-world and out) whether the trapped spren are actually discomfited by their imprisonment or if the Sibling is simply overreacting. Notably, other truespren consulted on the matter seem to find the practice acceptable, and the spreN making up both Shardplate and Soulcasters are described as being content with their state.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The ''Fourth Bridge''. Just getting that one ship in the air requires two separate lattices of conjoined fabrials in two separate locations, hundreds of gemstones which need to be perpetually reinfused, teams of chulls to provide horizontal motion, hundreds of people working winches to raise and lower the ship, and careful co-ordination using half a dozen different spanreed sets. It works, but the sheer manpower and logistics involved make it impractical to field on any substantial scale. However, just by getting it working, Navani is given plenty of praise from everyone, because now that it is proven to work, other artifabrians and engineers can step in to refine the design and make it more practical going forward.

* CapturedSuperEntity: While we've known that modern fabrials were powered by spren imprisoned in gemstones for a couple of books now, it becomes a major plot point in this book due to the Sibling objecting to the practice. It's still unclear (in-world and out) whether the trapped spren are actually discomfited by their imprisonment or if the Sibling is simply overreacting. Notably, other truespren consulted on the matter seem to find the practice acceptable.

** The Pursuer, after spending the entire novel being an arrogant, self-obsessed, petty bully, [[spoiler: gets soundly trounced by Kaladin in front of a crowd of singers and humans, ending up fleeing in terror, effectively destroying his status as a fearsome ImplacableMan. When he comes back to gloat over an emotionally destroyed Kaladin, Kaladin snaps from catatonia into berserker fury and ''brutally'' kills the Pursuer's body. Then he reincarnates in front of a superior who first taunts him for his failure and then uses him to try out a new weapon, one that finally kills him DeaderThanDead.]]

* ImmortalBreaker: Nightblood, which is able to destroy ''anything'', even Fused. [[spoiler: Or Shardvessels.]] Additionally, [[spoiler: by the end Navani and Raboniel have discovered the secrets of Antilight. This gives a method to kill both Fused and True Spren, leaving both sides of the war ultimately mortal.]]

* KillTheGod: [[spoiler:Taravangian kills Rayse by tricking him into dragging him into Odium's domain, then stabbing Rayse with Nightblood. Notably this only kills the vessel; the power itself remains, and [[KillAndReplace Taravangian steps into the role of Odium's Shardvessel.]]]]

** [[spoiler:Cultivation gave Taravangian his boon and his curse so he would be able to replace Rayse as Odium's Shardvessel.]]

** Raboniel, Lady of Wishes, to Navani Kholin, as emphasized, along with them being NotSoDifferent, across [[spoiler:the Occupation of Urithiru]]. While Navani is a ScienceHero who focuses primarily on tools over weapons, Raboniel is a MadScientist who has the opposite focus.

* NotSoDifferent:

-->'''Adolin:''' [[BrutalHonesty I could answer, but you don't care, do you?]] You obviously planned together how to attack me today. This is an ambush. You don’t care about honor, and you don’t care what I have to say. You simply want to throw things at me. [[BringIt All right. Go ahead!]] But know this! You say that spren don’t lie, that spren are not changeable like men? Next time you try to pretend that is true, remember this day! Remember how you lied when you said I’d have a fair trial. Remember how you treated the man who came to you in good faith! [...] I ''thought'' I’d find rational people inside these gates. Honorable spren. But you know what? I’m happy I didn’t. Because now I know you for what you are. [[NotSoDifferent You’re people, like any of us.]] Some of you are scared. It makes you afraid to commit. It makes you consider things you would once have thought irrational. I understand that. I am glad to find you are like humans, because I know what it means. It means you question—that you’re afraid, you’re uncertain. [[HumansAreFlawed Believe me, I feel these things too.]] But you can’t sit here and pretend that all humans are the same, that all humans deserve to be thrown away, when you yourselves are as flawed as we are. This trial proves it. Your hearts prove it.

** The epigraphs for Part Two have a lot of implications, most notably [[spoiler: the names of four new Shards]].

** Correspondingly, the Fused and Radiant Spren are far closer to mirror images than they'd prefer to admit. The conflict of the Desolations is eternal precisely because neither the Fused nor the Spren ever die, merely fighting a new mortal of the corresponding type to pair with and return to the fight.

* DramaticIrony: By the end of the story, [[spoiler:none of the characters know that Taravangian had ascended and become Odium. As a result, only the readers understand how much danger Dalanar and the others are currently in. Fortunately Odium has already agreed to a contest of champions and Dalinar's likely champion, Kaladin, is back in fighting form and now has true Shardplate.]]

* DevilsAdvocate: Blended, the Inkspren who helps Adolin prepare himself for his trial in a city where every single Honorspren has come to loathe humanity, the Stormfather, Sylphrena, and the Knights Radiant. She even testifies against him, bluntly telling him that while she hates humans for what happened during the Recreance, she wanted the trial to be fair. [[spoiler:[[NiceJobFixingItVillain She is also the one who suggested calling Maya as the final witness]], which proved to be exactly what was needed to clear humanity's name in a large number of Honorspren's minds.]]
* DieHardOnAnX: Die Hard in [[spoiler:Urithiru]]. Kaladin mounts a one-man resistance against the occupying Singers, without the aid of most of his Radiant powers.

* DramaticIrony: By the end of the story, [[spoiler:none of the characters know that Taravangian had ascended and become Odium. As a result, only the readers understand how much danger Dalanar and the others are currently in.]]