And welcome back listeners and bookworms.Today we have a special chapter reading for you today, special in that a change has occurred and that it is not our normal.
The first thing though that I'm going to say is I'm going to tell you upfront what we'll be spoiling in this episode.We will be spoiling the entirety of the Cosmere.If you have not read the entirety of the Cosmere, proceed at your own risk.
There's a chance we won't mention Tress of the Emerald Sea, or Yumi, or Sunlit Man, but there's also a chance we might.So, that is your discretion.The chapter readings will of course be only
The spoilers for the preview chapters, but any discussion we have after that May have spoilers this first part though is only going to have spoilers for if I can predict correctly Mistborn Bands of Morning and Stormlight all of it as we talk to our guest host CJ from Cosmere quandaries
Now, this person is showing off his Kaladin Stormblast cutout, and all of us should feel intense envy right now, but that's not what we're here for.Oh, one other caveat, listener.There's lightning happening outside my house.
If my power goes out, the recording will stop. And we may or may not resume if the power goes out and it cannot come back on in a reasonable amount of time tonight. I will still record the chapters.They will still be posted.
When the video is posted, we will simply not have the discussion and might be able to move that to something later this week.The power shouldn't go out.It's not horrible storms.All right, CJ, you are here.
You answered a call that I put out on a very special Discord that not a lot of people have access to.
and I put it in a very specific channel so that I would get bytes from people who could talk, complete Cosmere spoilers and feel comfortable doing that.You answered immediately.I'm so happy.
I'm going to let you talk in just a moment, but Trevor, the sandbox could not be here with us today.And then when I told him we had a replacement, he asked who, and I said, CJ from Cosmere Quandaries.And he was like, oh yeah, he's a great guy.
He's the one that got me the advanced reading. If he does better than I do and people in the comments say he's so much better than Trevor That I'm I can just leave that's what Trevor said We're not Trevor.
We're not kicking you off ever If anything we'll add CJ But we'll see what happens CJ thank you for being here
Hey, I'm glad to be here.I love Trevor.I love the Cosmere.And I think the name of that channel is Spoiler Danger.And yeah, I love talking about all of the pieces of the Cosmere and bringing them together.So I was always down for that.
Absolutely.I am so glad.Now, when I was like, who is this guy?When you responded to my call, I immediately saw that you had your Cosmo Quandary's tag after your name.So I looked you up.And then I saw that you have a Relain cosplay.
I'm impressed you Correct me if I'm wrong you wore that to Dragonsteel last year, right?I did.Yeah, I saw you I mean, of course, it's hard to miss I don't think I'll talk to you, but I saw you for sure.I was like, holy crap.Somebody went as Relain.
That's amazing That is a fantastic cosplay How how long did it take you to make that cosplay?I
So I have to plug my wife.She's cosplay the family way.She's the one who makes all of our cosplay.She has a Venli to match with my Relain that she made.
It has a bodysuit that she designed the skin patterns for, so that it is her white and red marbling.I think that she spent a total of about six months on both of those cosplays together.It's got the,
colon blue uniform, which was in many ways the easiest part for her.And then EVA foam and foam clay, and it's got the carapace to go on the shoulder pieces and the leg pieces.And it's just, you feel like a singer when you wear it.
And it's just, it's wonderful.
That's amazing. My wife went as Shallan last year from Words of Radiance.She is so far the only Shallan that has been from Words of Radiance.Specifically, let me grab the miniature.
Oh, sure, sure, sure.Yeah, that's how we did Venli and Relain was the Brotherwise minis were super helpful for the details.Yeah, it's such a good look for Shallan.
Yeah, so this is her on the Shattered Plains, I think the end of Words of Radiance.So my wife modeled her outfit directly off of this.
And as you'll get a double dose if you go watch the Mistborn Deck Building unboxing video that I will post sometime this week, we talk about that.She's actually wearing the cosplay in that video for fun.
The art director, Ben McSweeney, stopped by our booth And he bought a sticker from us.He bought one of the, hello, my name is Doug stickers.And then Tala talked to him about her cosplay.And he was like, you know, that's incredibly accurate.
That's really well done.So.
Yeah.That's cosplay.Cosplay is great.I don't know if I'll cosplay this year because I haven't started and life is a lot.
It's coming up so fast.It's like a month away.
It is literally a month away from when vendor check-in is.Now, do you have a booth at Nexus?
No, just doing panels this year.So I've got a Stormlight Recap and Speculation panel, and then a Breath Hacking panel.
Okay, so you're on Breath Hacking.Nice.Because of my... discussion in that spoiler danger chatter.What do they call channel?They call them channels because of that.Chatter would be a really good name though.
I like the idea of calling them chatters.
Yeah, chatters would be good because chatter invites discord.Because of some theorizing I did last week, Gwen, one of the event team planners reached out to me uh... last friday and said hey We have some open spots.
Would you like to be on the Mistborn Era 3 theorizing panel?Because previously I was just going to moderate writing horror on Saturday morning at 10 AM, which I'm super happy about.I've been reading nonstop horror since.
And on that panel is Steve Diamond and Luke Elliott.For some reason, not Dan, which may be because he's doing his movie night thing the night before and he doesn't want to wake up early.
It's probably for the best because it would sit there fanboying if Dan was on there.I've only read one of his books, but still, I just like, I listened to Intentionally Blank and the parasocial relationship is real.It is.It really is real.
Which for all of you listening who are going to see me at Dragonsteel Nexus, Two things I want you to know.One, I'm a busy person.And two, I deeply care about you and want to know everything about you.
But because I'm a busy person, I may feel like I'm brushing you off because I might need to get somewhere really fast. find me at another time or email us, Guide to the Cosmere, and we can chat, all right?
So now I'm excited to be on the Mistborn Era 3 theorizing panel, which is Friday night, 9 to 10 p.m.So I'm closing down Friday and opening Saturday.Oof, that's a rough schedule.It's gonna be great.
And then if I don't get a ticket to the Cosmere RPG Epic, which is a real possibility.And if there's still an open spot, I might jump onto the timeline conversation.Maybe, we'll see.Panels are exciting this year.
I'm really glad that they are kind of focusing in on making sure that they're good.Like last year, there was no, it was kind of like, hey, let's do this.This year, it's like, you need an outline.These are your people.
Time there's no open programming and I think that's going to just I mean from what you and I have seen in that special discord There are people who know what they are talking about It's Wow, like just with like anything else Dragonsteel does it is 100% effort
Oh yeah, they consistently have every I dotted every T crossed.And that's the really encouraging bit.Even when they do crazy new things like the world, that's true.Like, Hey, you care about quality.You're going to do something amazing.
Are you, are you going to the world hopper ball Thursday night, Thursday night.Nice.We're going, uh, Trevor and his wife and me and my wife are going Friday that the earlier session.Very excited.Uh, don't, don't spoil it for us. I will not.Thank you.
Before we move on, where can people find you in the wild?
Yeah, Cosmere Quandaries.Thankfully, nobody else had ever used that ridiculous combination of words on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram.So everywhere that I have been able to grab a social and a Gmail and a thing, it's Cosmere Quandaries.
It does have an A, before and after the D, so A-N-D-A-R-I-E-S.But I do TikToks pretty regularly.I usually am doing some cross promotion over to YouTube and I'm planning eventually some longer form content for YouTube.
But mostly right now, the big thing is I'm doing a death rattle series on TikTok where we're going through each of the death rattles from Way of Kings and theorizing about what on earth they mean and what they might hint at for five through 10.
That's exciting.That's nice.I'll be curious to see if one matches what happens in 10.That'll be crazy, crazy foreshadowing.All right.So this Saturday, my wife and I, so my wife and I live in Texas.We live in DFW.
Okay, recently we went to Mammoth Cave National Park.
So we passed we passed through Nashville Not that that's to you as you were talking about which I won't reveal your location, but you're over there But so we live in DFW and on Saturday we decided that we were going to tour Arkansas and by that we were gonna hit two state parks and and the National Park Hot Springs National Park and
So the first place we hit was Crater of Diamonds State Park.And this is the only place in the world where you can dig for diamonds and take whatever you find. up to five gallons of washed gravel per day per person.So it is in a volcanic crater.
It doesn't look like a volcanic crater.The ground is very gray and it has volcanic tufts and White white tuft, green tuft, lamprey, jasper, agates of various things, mica.I only learned about these things on Saturday, so I understand geologists.
I understand it now. So I was sitting there, and part of the process is you sift through the dirt, either dry sifting or wet sifting.And it was a little too rainy to do dry sifting, so we had to do the wet sifting, which they have big stations for.
It's like a trough of water.You put the dirt in the top sifter, and there's two layers and so on, and you filter the stuff out.And I was wearing my Hoyt for President shirt. which is confusing on the best of days.
This close to an election in the US, probably not a good idea.But people kind of like, I've had, I've had a few people be like, who is Hoyt?More people
that I've talked to, half of them are interested and they want to know what it's from, and the other half are like, oh, cool shirt, I'm a Sanderson fan.
So this lady comes up to me, she's using the space next to the trough, or next to my spot on the trough, and she goes, nice shirt.Now, I promise there's a point to this.
When you are engaging in a physical activity, that is the only thing you have to focus on in that moment.There's, and you've been doing it for like more than five or 10 minutes, you get an endorphin rush, right?Sure.You're good.
You're, you're focused.You're in your lane.You're thriving, right? I'm in the moment.Yep.Right.So I, I have started wearing my Sanderson shirts specifically to talk to Sanderson fans because I have a podcast and I want them to listen to my podcast.
Right.Previously, I'd just be like, I'm wearing this shirt and maybe somebody will talk to me and it'll be cool.Now I have an agenda. And boy, was that the wrong mindset.So she goes, nice shirt.I'm like, oh, are you a Sanderson fan?And she goes, yes.
I'm like, are you excited for Wind and Truth?She goes, yes.I'm doing my reread right now.Before she can get any more words out, I am running over her words with my own questions.Are you going to Nexus?Are you gonna make it out to Nexus?
And she goes, oh yeah, maybe one day. Have you started reading the preview chapters?I swear to God, I'm not letting her breathe at all.Griff's trying to come in.Griff is there.Hello, Griff.
Sorry, I just came in muted with the video off because I wasn't sure if you were still reading.
We're not.We haven't gotten there quite yet.I am telling a compelling story from what happened Saturday.So I was in Arkansas.I was at the crater of Diamond State Park.
And I was wet sifting dirt to look for diamonds as one does at the creator of Diamond State Park.And this lady came up to me and she, I was wearing my Hoyt for president shirt and she goes, nice shirt.And I go, are you a Sanderson fan?
And she goes, yes.And then I asked her if she's excited for Wind and Truth.She said, yes.I said, are you going to make it out to Nexus at any time?She's like, I'm going to try to in the future.
But at this point, Griff, I'm too excited about telling her about our podcast. that I'm running over her words, and I am deeply, listen, you are a very nice lady, and I am deeply, deeply sorry. for evidently scaring you off.
I don't know if it was me or your daughter needed you.I go, are you reading the preview chapters?And she's like, no, I'm kind of on Words of Radiance.
And then without thinking about what she's saying, I again, run her over with my words and I go, I have a podcast.And she's like, have a good day.
That's a mortification that I'm going to have to work on in therapy.
Yeah, that's a rough one.
I have a podcast.Bye! Now, now, admittedly, admittedly, this might not have anything to do with specifically you.That's true.Because there is a stigma about a white man saying, I have a podcast.Wow.Yeah.
So it may not be you specifically or anything you did.It might have just been the coupling of you being a white male and saying, I have a podcast.
That may have been it.I'll try to shove that into my worldview as we move on from this.There are a few more things that we're gonna talk about before we get to chapter 27.The chapters are short today, which is- I will also break in.
I'm probably only gonna be able to stick around for chapter 27.Unfortunately, I have audits today and
Oh, yeah.Yeah.That's fine.We believe in you.You can audit.
I appreciate it.But I did still want to hop in for at least chapter 27 because I found it. fascinating actually, so.
Indeed, indeed.Cool, cool, cool.Okay, so the Leather Bound Bands of Morning release happened this last week.It happened last Tuesday in conjunction with Light Day.Like discussed in the previous episode, I do not purchase the Leather Bounds.
I don't wish to, but Trevor does, and Trevor has words to say.He's probably going to say them in a few weeks, but the thing is, and I am very much a keep the peace kind of person.I will not rock the boat.
I have a hard time on that, so I'm working on it.And this is one of those times I'm working on it.There has to be a better way for fans of Sanderson to get their hands on limited edition merchandise.There has to be a way.
The reason I say this is that it is acceptable the way that they are doing it, but it gives more
It's more lenient for those who are available during midday, which if you're working for a living at a job that requires you to not be on the computer, you're out of luck.
People that have faster internet might be able to get, you know, that's another level of, hey, this is slightly unfair. There's gotta be a different way.
Um, I mean, I, oh, sorry.
Oh, I was just going to say, I, I agree.Um, I have noticed the only flaw with Sanderson's system so far.And I kind of noticed this back even during the secret project was that it does tend to favor the affluent.
Because if, if the secret project, cause that came out to what, $700?Some 600 something.Yeah. Yeah, something around there.
If we had even had two months to gain those funds rather than 30 days, I think a lot more people would have been able to join it.
Sure.And there is, there is a balance.There is only so much a company can do, right?
Oh yes.I'm not asking for like them to completely overturn the industry or anything like that.Yeah. But I feel like the kickstarters for 30 days.It's it can be rough.
It can be rough on those who want to participate But do not necessarily have Or but need to plan for that kind of a purchase sure
And in this case, oh, go ahead.
I was gonna say for better, for worse, they've added the payment plan option, right?To Kickstarter for the last go around.
That's nice.That was, I think, a really solid move for the Kickstarters.For this, for the Bands of Mourning release, Griff, I don't know if you followed it.This was not a crowdfunding.This was a straight purchase off of Dragonsteel's website.
Oh, okay, I thought this was something similar to the... What was the last level around?
Yeah, I thought it was something to do with that.Nevermind, okay, bye.
No, it actually, it stems, it's two problems that affect the same kind of merchandise.Right.Right, so the payment options have helped with the Kickstarters, and ultimately, if you can't afford something, so just to be open and vulnerable,
Like, I haven't really ever budgeted in my life.I'm not in great financial places because of it, but my wife and I sat down and budgeted yesterday and we're like, this is how much we get to spend on this.This is how much we get to spend on that.
Shout out to Josh from Cosmere in miniature for his video on the Brotherwise Kickstarter being like, He said in that, now my budget for my hobby for the year is 270 something dollars.
So if I take that and I apply it to this Kickstarter, am I really getting the most out of it if I go for this tip?Anyways, that was- Right, no, no, that's a good point.
If you can't afford it, yeah, that sucks.If you can afford it with the payment plan, it's awesome they put the payment plan in.
Right.Yeah, no, and that's actually that's that right there is is a good policy because that means that you could put a smaller amount down initially, right? And then pay, you know, I mean, everybody knows how payment plan works.
No worries.I did see somebody on Facebook in one of the groups, somebody complained, of course, that they couldn't get the signed and numbered leather bound bands of mourning.And they said something about, you know, this needs to change.
perhaps a lottery system.And somebody in the comments said, a lottery system is random and I don't like random, so we shouldn't do that.And I know this is getting really anecdotal.You know, this is getting very, what are you talking about, Alex?
Can I share a thought on that?Go CJ, go.
Yeah, so this was actually a really interesting thing that happened to me at Dragonsteel last year was I showed up super early to Brandon's spoiler Q&A, because I had seen previous Q&As where it's you start lining up, right?
People just line up at the microphone.So it's like, okay, cool.I have like five questions.I really want to ask them.I'm going to be there early.And you walk in and they go, oh, text your number to this and scan the QR code and we'll lottery you.
And if your name gets picked, you'll, you'll get to go up and ask questions.It was randomized, which is in many ways, the fairest way to do it.But for me, I was like, but I was able to be there this time.Like I was there early.
And so it's both sides are going to, you're going to always end up frustrating somebody with that kind of a system.
When, when the rules are not known.
specifically in this case specifically when the rules are not known and you think you have finally done it then yes that is taking the rug from under you that sucks if if if Sanderson's team came out today and said every single numbered book outside of Dragonsteel Nexus releases is going to be a lottery system then everybody knows going forward that this is the way it's gonna be they can they
I believe that they would be able to implement a lottery system.It would be the fairest.And this is how I described it to Trevor.And I want to put these thoughts in the video because somebody might get something out of this.
They should do a lottery system.You should be able to sign up through a phone number.You should have to verify that with an email.This is to keep the scammers down.This is what they do for concert tickets.Taylor Swift did it.Blackpink did it.
It favors the affluent if you have multiple phones in your family. But now we're talking instead of a scammer being able to have X amount of tabs open trying to buy it, it's now you got maybe seven phones if your family's big, okay?
So it's already cutting down.They should send out a wave one, this amount of books we have, this is the amount of people that are getting this text saying, you have 24 hours to purchase this item.
If they don't have, if they don't purchase it using their specific code, they'll be able to catch that.And then they will have a wave two where if you didn't purchase it the first time, you're not considered in wave two, right?Yeah.
It sucks if you don't have the money, but you were told up front, if you get chosen, you have 24 hours.So then they wait a day, they send out numbers and they say in 24 hours, you're going to have 24 hours to purchase this item.
And then they keep going until they're out of, or until they have just the stock that they use for replacements.This gets the most books and the most Sanderson fan hands.It doesn't heavily favor the affluent.
It doesn't heavily favor those who can afford to be away from work during that time.There are ways of doing this that are more fair.There are ways of doing this that are less stressful on people. Is this for something that is pretty trivial.
Yes, I understand that.I have thought about that since the moment I started thinking about this.Remember me at five seconds ago, I just said, I don't mean But it is important to people. It is, it's important.
Yeah, no, I mean, here's the thing.One of the very first things that we learned in economics class, and my teacher pounded this into our heads from the very beginning.
You can see it in your forehead right there.Sorry.
Yeah, exactly.Something is worth to someone what it is worth to them.There is no objective worth of something to someone. If it is worth it to them, it is worth it to them.And no objective outside judgment gets to determine whether or not it is.
Boom.There you go, Dragonsteel.So take that advice with a pinch of salt from somebody who does not handle logistics. Next thing we're gonna bring up is light day is currently going on.
It's going on until I think November 14th ish This is there are pretty pretty good deals Sanderson stuff is generally not cheap.It's not you know Walmart quality stuff From the toy aisle it is nice I'm gonna break it I'm gonna hop off
switch earbuds and hop back on.Because last time I tried to switch earbuds without doing that, it made the audio all wrong.So.
This was in Italy, this was back on Riverside.So it might not do it, but I'm not going to take the chance.
Good idea.We will see you in just a moment, but I'm going to continue talking.
Okay, so light day they have different bundles.
They have those lined or Listed out in their cognitive realm blog For the pins and for some of the other for the sweaters You don't get the discount until they're in your cart and then they show up so they you know, you might not see that and
Now, I had a slight annoyance with the pins that they were offering.They had a deal where you buy three, you get a fourth one free. which is a great deal.It's a great deal on pins to me, because as you can see, I like the pins.I like the pins.
I'm excited for this F1 with the Wind and Truth bundle.I actually, I bought the Sprint.I didn't back the leather bound.I backed some of the add-ons, including the Sprint pins.I want the pins.
So they released seven with a deal that was buy three, get a fourth one free. which means you only get one deal.And then you get a pin that you, if you're a collector, you get a pin that you've already gotten.
Now for, for me and my wife, I have all of my pins in a lovely case.Uh, I said, Hey, um, I could get an extra salon pin.And she was like, yes, yes, I want that.So that worked out, that worked out, but dragon steel,
That's a small annoyance, but it is an annoyance.I understand that they want to keep their pin series to 18.The first 10 were the Spren, Dalinar, the rest of the Colins and so on.And then Seth was 18.I get it.
Once that was made clear and that it was capped at 18, sure.You could have done a 19th just for fun.You could have done a number zero.You could have done Sanderson's wife.And we would have all been like, oh, that's so sweet.
Okay, the last thing we have for you going to Dragonsteel next.Oh wait, they put up a stained glass tour video.So they finally did it.They finally did it.What amazing art.It was cool.Did you watch it, CJ?
I have seen glimpses of it.I've not actually gotten to sit down and watch all of it, but even just the preview images from the video are astounding.
Amazing.They really are.And they also have a Cognitive Realm blog up for that.The last thing we have before we get to the chapters is Dragonsteel Nexus updates. That was a weird sound.It's not ideal.
If you are going to line up for numbered Wind and Truth for numbers lower than 1,000, which I would have liked to do, they are going to have the line Wednesday starting at 10 a.m. So you can line up at 4 a.m.
at the earliest and they will start handing out numbers at 10 a.m.until they run out or I assume a different threshold is met.
I am a little sad because I thought it would have happened Thursday morning and I'm flying in Wednesday afternoon so I will not be able to participate in that line unless Is that a big deal to me?Not really.
I like the camaraderie, even though I didn't really talk to anybody last year.It was cool to stand out in the cold.Oh well.The next thing, so that's Wednesday before the con opens.And I assume they'll be doing badge pickup that day too.
That's the only thing that makes sense. The second thing here is they're going to have the Fanderlanche, which you will be able to register for.It is not trivia based.
It is going to be a series of silly challenges, and whoever wins is crowned Sanderson's number one fan. The third thing, which is small but neat, is that the Exhibitor Hall map is up.
Silverlight Guide to the Cosmere will be next to My Sister Made Me View It and across from a couple of artists.And yeah, so go find out, go stalk your favorites and find out. where you're gonna end up in the exhibitor hall.
There's a lot of exhibitors this year.There's a lot.So.Yes.We are, oh, I forget that I have to admit people.
I'm sorry, Greg.I'm sorry, Greg.I forgot I have to admit people.
Yes, yes you do.I was about to text you and say, hey, I'm here. Yep, you should.
It pops up at the very top and it's... Unobtrusive?Yeah, it's like, if I don't look up at CJ, I don't see it.And I'm typically looking at myself because I'm fairly narcissistic.
I like the way I look.That's fair.I like looking at myself and being like, yeah, you're getting it. just as a little boost of confidence.Okay, we are gonna go to the chapter 27 reading.CJ, I don't know if you've been following our videos.
Typically, Griff and Trevor will turn their mics off and mute themselves just because they feel it's weird for me to read and them to just kind of stare at the screen.You feel free to do whatever you want though.That's up to you.
I won't be bothered either way. Uh, I am going to pull up the chapters real quick and we are going to get on this quickly.Okay.So feel free to turn your camera off.Feel free to keep it on.Um, probably mute yourself though.Chapter 27.What is right?
26 years ago. Zeth's father, Netero's son Valano, knelt beside the new stone.Zeth's mother, Zenon daughter Beth, was overseeing painting classes in the town, so they'd sent her a message via tech, one of their carrier parrots.
One of their carrier parrots.Wind blew across them, bringing with it the pungent scent of the gathered sheep in the nearby pasture. Seth hid behind his father, peeking out.He wasn't certain why this new stone frightened him so.
He loved their rock, and a new one was surely cause for celebration.But, shamefully, he wished he hadn't found it.Something new meant possible celebration, possible attention, possible change.
He preferred quiet days full of languid breezes and bleeding sheep.Nights beside the hearth or the fire pit, listening to mother tell stories.He didn't want some grand new thing.Zeth had what he loved.
Elid asked.Call the stone shamans? It depends," he said.Depends.Their father was a calm man, with a long beard he liked to keep tied with a green ribbon at the bottom, matching one on his arms, together forming his splash.
He got to wear three, as his duty of training other shepherds elevated him.His head was shaded by his customary tall reed hat with a wide brim, and he had a bit of a punch that spoke to his talent as a cook.He had all the answers.Always.
What about it is uncertain, Father?Zeth said, peeking around at the little stone.
We just do what is right.
Father glanced at their larger stone, then at this one.A single rock is a blessed anomaly.Two might mean more.It might mean the Spren have chosen this region."What do you mean?Elid asked, hands on her hips.
I mean there might be other rocks, Father said, hiding beneath the surface here.Stone shamans will want to set aside the entire region, preserve it, and watch it for a few years to see if anything else emerges.And us?Seth asked.
Well, we'll have to move, father replied.Tear down the house in case it's accidentally on holy ground.Set up wherever the farmer finds land for us, maybe in the town. In the town?"
Zeth turned, looking into the distance, though the rolling hills prevented him from seeing Clearmount unless he climbed up on top of one.It was close enough to walk to in an hour or so, but he found the place noisy, congested.
In the town, it felt like the mountains weren't just around the corner, because buildings blocked them out.It felt like the meadows had gone brown, replaced by dull roads.You couldn't smell the sea breezes.
He didn't hate the town, but he got the sense that it hated the things he loved.I don't want to move, Elid said.
We found a rock.We shouldn't be punished.If it's right though, Zeth said, then we have to do it.Right, father?
Father stood up, pulling at his trousers, and waited.Soon, Zeth picked out his mother hurrying along the path between hills toward their home. She wore a long green skirt as her splash, while it was only one piece that size.
Well, it was an audacious amount for her station.She had a white apron over the front and curly light brown hair that bunched up around her head like a cloud.
She was carrying one of the town's shovels, a relic crafted from metal that had never seen rock, soul cast by an honor bearer and gifted to them.Seth gaped, his jaw dropping.That couldn't mean Mother hurried up to them, shovel on her shoulder.
Father nodded toward the new rock, and Mother let out a relieved sigh.
So small?Your note had me worried, Nitoro.Mother, Zeth said, what are you doing? merely a quick relocation," she said.I borrowed one of the shovels, but didn't tell anyone why.We'll dig up the rock and move it a few hundred yards.
Let it rain a little so it seems to have naturally poked up, then tell everyone."Seth gasped.We can't touch it.Mother pulled out a pair of gloves.Of course not.That's why I brought gloves, dear.That's the same thing.
Seth said, horrified.He looked to his father.We can't do this, can we?Father scratched at his beard.Depends, I suppose, on what you think, son.Me?You found the rock, Father said, glancing at Mother, who nodded in agreement.So you can decide.
I choose whatever is right," Zeth said immediately.Is it right for us to lose our home?Father asked.Aye, Zeth glanced at the house.There might be dozens of rocks underneath here, Father said.If that's the case, then we should absolutely move.
But in the hundreds of years that rain has fallen on this region, only two have emerged. so it's unlikely.
Moving the stone a few hundred yards will still make the shamans watch this area, but with the rocks being further apart, the worry will be more nebulous.But that requires us to move it, in secret.
We hate the stonewalkers, Zeth said, because of how they treat rock.Father knelt down, one hand on Zeth's shoulders.We don't hate them.They simply don't know the right way of things.They raid us, Father. Elid said, folding her arms.
Yes, well, he said, those men are evil, but it's not because they live in a place with too much stone.It's because of the choices they make.He smiled at Seth.It's okay, son.If you want us to turn this in now, well, we'll do it.
Can't you just tell me what to do?Seth asked. No, I don't think that I can, Father said.Unfair to put you in this spot, I know, but the spren gave you the first sight.You should decide.We can move the rock or we can move our home.
Maybe we should let him sleep on it, Mother said.
No, we can move the rock.
All three of them relaxed as he said it, and he felt a sudden, shameful resentment.His father said Zeth could choose, but they'd all clearly wanted a specific decision.He'd made it not because it was right, but because he had sensed their desires.
But how could they all want it if it wasn't right?Maybe they saw something he didn't. Maybe he was broken.But if so, they should have simply told him what they intended to do, and then done it.That would have been fine.Why give him the choice?
Didn't they see that made this his fault?Mother pulled on her gloves and started digging. Zeth winced each time the shovel scraped the stone.That metallic sound was not natural.
He hoped that they would discover the rock was enormous, so that the plan had to be abandoned.In the end, it was small.Eight inches long and a dull gray color.He could have held it in one hand if he'd wanted.
Mali, the Yew, seeming to sense his tension, rubbed up against him and he gripped at her wool, her warmth.Even Mother seemed a little unsure, now that she'd dug the rock out.She stepped back, leaving it in the hole.
You scraped it, Elid said.That seems kind of obvious.
Once we've buried it again, Mother said, nobody will see the scrapes.
How much trouble would we be in?Elid asked, if someone found out.
I suspect the farmer wouldn't be happy," Father said.He laughed then, and it sounded genuine.Might require some cake to make up for it.Don't get that look, Seth.We show devotion because we choose to.
And so, the kind of devotion we make is ours to decide.
I don't understand, he said.Don't the stone shamans tell us what to do?They share the teachings of the Spren, Mother said as she shouldered the shovel.
But we interpret those teachings.What we're doing here today is reverent enough for me. Zath thought on that and wondered, as this was not the first clue in his life, if perhaps this was why they chose to live outside the town.
Many shepherd families lived at least part of the year inside it.His family visited each month for devotions, so he didn't dare think that his family wasn't faithful.Yet the older he got, the more questions he had.
How did he feel about his parents doing something he knew the shamans wouldn't approve of?They were still out standing there, staring at the rock when the horns sounded.Father looked up, then whispered a soft prayer to the spren of their stone.
The horn meant raiders on the southern coast.Stonewalkers.Zeth felt an immediate panic.What do we do? Gather the sheep, father said, quickly.We must drive them toward Dyson's Valley on the other side of the town.The farmer has troops in the region.
We'll be safe inland.But this... Zeth said, gesturing to the rock.This!Mother, suddenly determined, reached down and grabbed it in her gloved hands.Together, all four of them froze, then looked toward their family stone.It sat there, unmoving.
None of them were struck down.Zeth thought he could tell, from the way his parents slowly relaxed, that they hadn't been certain.At least this indicated his parents hadn't been secretly moving rocks around all his life.
Mother walked over to a tree nearer their house, then carefully placed the stone into a gnarled nook among the roots and hit it with leaves.That will do for now, she said.If raiders do come here, they'll think nothing of a stone.
They don't reverence stone or the Spren who live within them.You all gather the sheep.I'll return the shovel.
Father and Elid went to do exactly that.Zeth hugged Molly, wishing this day had never begun. The end of chapter 27.All right.Indeed.
So yeah, I found this chapter interesting.
Well, mostly the fact of why do they believe this friend exists in the stone?Like, obviously we know that there are stones, right?
So I'm not questioning that per se, but they seem to imply that all Spren either live in stone or revere stone for some reason.
There is, I believe, a fairly straightforward answer to your question. I wonder if CJ is going to say the same thing as I would.CJ, what do you got?I have two thoughts.
I have two thoughts.One is I'm feeling a really interesting connection with what's been done to Baha'u'llah Mishram, as well as what's been done to the Thrill, where we are containing spren literally within a stone, right?
So I'm wondering if there's some very ancient memory.I don't think that's really necessarily where he's going with it, but I think it's possible.
The one that comes to my mind is I've always assumed the reverence of the stone was a, hey, don't go over those mountains over there.This is the barrier to the rest of Roshar.The singers are over here.This is your place.
And so it was almost this superstition that was created of, hey, don't walk on stone, they're going to say it's holiness.I think it's a way to keep the people in Shinnevar.That's how I've always read it.Wow.
That's clever and pretty analogous to what some might consider religion, you know, in real life to be, uh, right.Uh, is as a measure of control.Uh, I was going to go somewhere different with this.
So now we have a lot for people to discuss in the comment.Uh, so Griff, you specifically were asking, do they think like are all spread in the stone or, um, Remind me what exactly, there was another part to your question.
Well, so, I mean, like, obviously we know that there's stone spren.
And so, like, obviously that might have brought about this idea that all spren exist in the stone.
Obviously they seem to assume that there are spren in the stone because it talks about the fact that, you know, they gave a prayer to the spren in their stone.
But I'm curious as to whether they believe that all spren
exist within stone somehow or if they hold the same view as other rosharans where you know wind spren exists in the wind you know etc etc like i don't we haven't been given enough information obviously on shinavaran viewpoints apart from zeth who doesn't seem to be surprised that like honor spren exists in the wind so maybe it's just
I don't know.Like, I'm curious.I would like to know more specifics, I think, about Shinovar and religion in regards to Spren and their relation to selves.
Sure.So if we remember a few chapters ago, the sibling was talking about how they were made out of essentially the spren of the stone.
So there's something literally akin to the wind and whatever the night was, and likely again with the storm that became the Stormfather.
that the stone is one of the ancient spren that Adal-Nasim made for Roshar, and that is likely caught up in the, like you were saying, the religion being a way to trap, not trap, but keep the Shin in Shinovar.
It is likely that they have some extra connection to that stone being that is now the sibling, or had, I think is probably a better term. The stone seems to have memory.
I think what Trevor would say here, because Venli- Yes, I was just thinking about that scene, yes.Yeah, Venli in Rhythm of War, when she uses her wheel shaper powers to get a lift out of her prison.The stone, I don't remember exactly what they said.
CJ, do you remember what the stone were saying?
I mean, I'm in my rhythm of worry right now.So I'm not there yet.I'll see if I can pull it up.But as I recall, they were very much just remembering when they did this kind of thing with Radiance in the past.
And even more so than Radiance with her people in the distant, distant past.And so I think it was exciting to them to see a listener talking to the stone again and being able to use the Surge to be able to do that.
Yeah, and then again, Dalinar also had some sort of interaction with stone in Oathbringer.He was rebuilding the Thalina statue.
Yes, the temple, or the...
Right.So ultimately, I think if we took a step back and looked at this, the Shin worship stone, because there is something to worship in the stone, either it was something that they had from a long time ago that they just kept up with,
and we are seeing this play out, we're gonna start seeing them not care about the stone.I think the Cosmere RPG, literally called Stonewalkers, the adventure, is going to tie directly into this. And at least some measure.
And yeah, that's a good question though, because it hasn't been clearly defined what exactly the Shin think about the stone, but from all of the clues we have before, it's definitely, I think something more than just, there's a spren of this stone.
I think it is capital S stone.
There's an interesting thing here though, where I see a parallel between
uh this of the the wind having an ancient spren and the stone having an ancient spren and uh the greek myth of gaia and Oh, I am drawing a blank, uh the god of the sky Because there was gaia the mother of earth and there was
Somebody with a computer Google it for me because I don't trust my phone to keep the connection while I Google it.
I'm trying, yeah.Who would the Sky God have been?
Because there was Mother Earth, which was Gaia.
Oh, yeah, yeah.Or Onyx, or yeah.
I missed out on the opportunity to call it Skyus.
Um, but no, there's an interesting parallel there where like the ancients friend are copying these Because Gaia and Oranos are the most ancient of ancients like they are they perceive the titans.
They perceive the gods they were the beginning of everything in the greek myths and so I find it interesting that
there is kind of this parallel between that and also the fact that if night is in there as well nyx was one of the most ancient goddesses that even zeus feared her power yeah and so i find i i just i find the parallel between this and the greek myths an interesting one i don't know if it was intentional or just the fact that this is kind of baked into
Western mythology to some extent, but I find the connection interesting regardless.
Yeah, I mean, even thinking about like Judeo-Christian, right?Genesis, you have the heavens, the earth, and the night, and then the day is created after night.
So there's that, you just have this reality of what does it mean foundationally to create heaven, earth, and night are kind of the beginning substances that you start working with as people.
You're absolutely correct, because honestly, if we translate Genesis correctly, there are three things that is not created by God.That is the heavens, the earth, and the darkness.Yeah.And so, yeah, that's actually a really good point.
And if we go back to the fact that apparently Sanderson is basing some of this off of Platonism, with the cognitive realm being the realm of forms, et cetera, et cetera.
This again ties back to what I've been saying, which is a lot of the Roshan mythology matches Gnosticism, which was a mix of Judeo-Christian belief and Neoplatonism.
So what you're saying is this is Greek tragedy and everybody's going to die at the end.
I mean, that's actually a possibility, yeah.
So yeah, or leave, right?There's really interesting themes in the epigraphs that's really emphasizing leaving being important.And I was thinking about, right?
Sorry, I didn't mean to break in, but that actually gave me a really interesting idea because if we look forward into some of the later stories, what is this all about?Which is Rosharans during the space age and them apparently traveling the stars.
So them leaving Roshar and branching out into other places is absolutely what could be the ultimate culmination of the Stormlight Archives.
the diaspora of Roshar to a certain extent.
Yeah, exactly.Which it'd be interesting to see whether or not they leave because they want to leave Roshar to the singers.
I had a really interesting theory today, and I wondered from Honor and Odium's perspective, what happens if all of the representatives of Honor leave the Rosharan system?Does Odium remain bound because there's no one to release him?
Because right now, the only way he can leave is for a bondsmith to give him permission in some way, shape, or form to leave.So I kind of went, is that the solution?Just everybody leaves Roshar?
well see and that brings up a really interesting idea which is is their investiture inherently baked into some planets and or or do the shards bring that investiture or is it a mix of both because if we look at like preservation and ruin with um oh yeah not so uh scadrial scadrial thank you
the the fact that all of their magic seems to be based in metal is that an inherent aspect of the planet because it doesn't seem to have anything to do with preservation or ruin for them to be inherently tied to metal so i'm wondering if the planet's investiture is inherently tied to metal and that got mixed in with preservation and ruin
when they inhabited that planet and began creating on it maybe because humans seem to be weirdly prevalent throughout the entire cosmere even though i mean like they probably existed before auto annulsum was shattered maybe oh yes oh yeah definitely yeah so but that does make it that is weird the fact that i mean
Did did the humans arrive on scourge real separate or were they created by preservation and they were in they were created by preservation and ruin They even made the planet.
Yeah Yeah, see and so that's a weird thing to me why is it tied to metal in that case like why Okay, yes I get that I'm not asking for the
Yeah, I think each shard has a little bit of influence.I think each shard has a little bit of influence as to how the magic system expresses itself, but it does seem like, sorry, the vessel.
The vessel has some influence in how the magic system expresses itself.We know that preservation was able to monkey with allomancy and say, hey, this metal here, this metal there, move things around, but,
But there does seem to be something inherent about the shard that then carries the magic system into it.
Because like honor, it has oaths right but, but at the same time does it because it shards the, this was a really interesting rabbit hole for me recently.
In Words of Radiance, it's very clear that people are bonding Spren and getting access to surges.And then Ishar comes along and says, no, no, no, you have to have oaths if you're going to do that.And then he creates the Knights Radiant.
So the Spren bond is an honor thing, but it does not inherently require the five oath system, the five ideals that we see today.Because in Words of Radiance, like the book, the epigraphs, they talk about how Ishar begins to impose the oaths
because men have found surges.And so you can have Knights Radiant honor, you know, magic system without oaths, at least the formal five ideal oaths that we have for the Knights Radiant now.So there is like, there's some differences you can do.
And see, that also brings up an interesting thing, because in Sixth of the Dusk, we see the fact that this planet seems to have an investiture system.
And although it has a perpendicularity, obviously no shard had enough of an influence on the planet.
It seems like some inherent aspect of the investiture system on that planet was maybe influenced by a shard, but I don't necessarily think created by a shard.
Because it's totally fair.
Yeah, I don't know And then eating being by the birds and that Being through the weird psychic abilities that the birds then Express is it's a convoluted system and it doesn't seem I mean that said maybe it was created by shard We don't know.
I mean it does have at least one perpendicularity so Yeah, I don't know.
And an island that is an avatar of autonomy somehow, which who knows what that means. Um, that's the, that is the influence I think of autonomy there.You have to go into the jungle, into the dangerous place to find the thing that is the power.
And if you can survive, and if you can get there, you're rewarded.And if you die, well, then that's okay.Because that's autonomous survival.
Is it, is it playing off the, the saying no man is an Island because if you're autonomous, you are an Island.Yeah.
We're talking about Adonalsium creating, I mean, every indication, and this gets into words, Brandon, but he's indicated that Adonalsium created Roshar.
There's indications, I think, even in Wind and Truth text, that all these things predated honor cultivation and odium coming to the planet.
and it was their influence that kind of turned things up a notch from, okay, we've got stone and sky and night, and now all of a sudden you've got honor spren and cultivation spren and some of these more civilized spren societies.
We have freaky wind and freaky stone and freaky night.
And to go back a little bit too, I mean, it is really interesting that all the preview chapters are indicating there aren't sprens in Shinovar.
Like they are not wandering around in the way that you would expect them to be on Roshar, which I don't know what that means yet.Like that is weird.
Yeah, because they don't have people that can access the use of like, um, the the soul casters and things like that, which you'd think that That it is interesting that they seem to be so wholly separate from the magic systems that are prevalent on the other areas of Roshar What was that you said about soul casters?
The fact that the shinavar don't have them that is they do have the ability to cast
right right but they don't have soul casters and they usually trade for soul casted metal because it was not touched by yeah so i just find it yeah i'm not saying that they are wholly like unable to use them but they don't use them they don't have the materials to create them as far as we can tell and they don't seem to use the magic that other rosharans consider
if not every day, at least prevalent and, and common enough that nobody looks a stance at it.
Honor blades.And that's kind of it.Yeah.Oh, it's, what's weird is they have two honor blades with transformation as surges.So there's no reason why they couldn't soul cast there for the, did I, did I misread, um,
Hold on, give me two more seconds.
Yeah, he does talk about some of the soul blade or honor blades being missing.
Yeah, so well, but okay, in this chapter that I just read, we just read, she was carrying one of the town shovels, a relic crafted from metal that had never seen rock, soul cast by an honor bearer and gifted to them.
So they are using transformation from the honor blade.
I wondered, as you read that, and maybe I need to look at, is H capitalized there?
Or how is it framed?Honor bearer is one word with a capital H.
Yeah, when I listened to that the first time, I assumed they meant Soulcasters.Like the trading we saw with the Stim, like they're an honor bearer.But I think you're probably right, that there's some limited Soulcasting.
Considering I actually thought the same, because I was listening to it rather than reading it, so I didn't see the capitalization there.But I assumed it was a Soulcaster as well.
From the previous Zeth chapter that was his flashback, Enid, or Elid talks about a honor bearer flying.
So now we have context where an honor bearer might still mean somebody just carrying a soul caster or a shard blade, but that moves the ballpark closer towards there are 10 honor bearers carrying the 10 honor blades. Yeah.Assuming.
Yeah, no, I agree.I think it is.Yeah.
So that does bring up the question, which is why aren't they using the Soulcaster Honor Blades more prevalently?
Like Stormlight, I assume.
Do they require Stormlight?I thought the Honor Blades could do what they did without
No, they need, they need Stormlight.
No, yeah, they do need Stormlight.They use extra Stormlight.That's interesting.
Are you, cause they mentioned that they are like, the people train with them and they're, they are used defensively.
But I expect, yeah, the availability of Stormlight might be similar to the rest of Roshar, but the storm does peter out by the time it does.
Yeah, no, you're right.Because Kaladin says, oh, I was worried about it.But Zeth says they'll still infuse.So yeah, that's not a problem anymore.Yeah, it probably is a, we see these as holy.Yes.And type playing is my guess.
We don't want to be doing it all the time. That's interesting.
Yeah, I think to your point about the Shinovar religion, the Shin religion, that is my bet on flashbacks, like five, six, seven-ish for Zeth, because we know he gets to train as an honor bearer, apparently his time.
And so there's no way there's not gonna be a scene of like Zeth, son Notaro, you know, in front of the teachers and all of that.Probably our most didactic session for the Shinovar religion we've ever gotten.
Yeah, it will be interesting to dig deeper into it and see exactly what their religion entails, not only with the Spren in stone, but Spren in general, because it was interesting the fact that Zef didn't seem to react much to the fact that there were other Spren in Roshar.
I mean, maybe we just didn't see it, but he didn't seem to find it weird that there were Honor Spren or Wind Spren dancing around.
But then again, we caught him mid-exile, so it may just not have been a part of what we saw when he first got into, or when he was first exiled from Jinnahvar.
I wonder if that'll be one of his last flashbacks, like his first moment of walking out of the Shinovar Mountains.How beautiful of a parallel would that be?
Kaladin at the beginning of this book coming into Shinovar, Zeth leaving Shinovar with his flashback.Oh, that would be so interesting.
That would be sick.That'd be beautiful.
I don't know if Brandon has time to do it in this book, but it would be a really cool scene for him to write.
It would be.No, I completely agree.I think that'd be really terrible.
Well, it's like, is that gonna be like Dalinar getting the Rashadium?An amazing flashback opportunity that we just don't get because there's not enough time in the book to do that story.
It'll be a two-part novella for the Kickstarter of whatever the eighth book is of the Stormlight Archive.So like 20 years from now, we'll get both a story that has Zeth leaving Shinovar and Dalinar getting his Rashadium. Love it.Love it.
Absolutely.Brandon, we know you're listening to this specifically.You should take on our wishes specifically to include this in the book.
Also, we'd love to have you on our podcast.
Um, speaking of 20 years, uh, this, this actually last week's, um, or two weeks ago, flashback with Seth was the first time that my little brain ever processed the fact that this man is 37 years old.Yep.
And then with, yep, he is the same age as I am.
And with the Roshar year being, is it- 10% more.
It works out to 10% more earth years after you do the conversion is what I've been told.So like, there's different amounts of days and weeks and months and years and all of that, but the shortcut is add 10% and that's what your age is.
That's what you, that's what was on Roshar.Earth age, earth age would be, so like he would be 40 ish.Two ish, 40, yeah, 40, 41.Yeah, somewhere in that ballpark.But yeah, but.
It'd be 3.7.If you're adding it, it'd be 3.7.So it'd be 40 years and what, seven months, I guess?No, that's not correct.No, no, no, because that's.0.7, yeah.Yeah, 0.7, it'd be 40.7 years, whatever that works out to.
I think rounded up would just be 41.
Yeah, that's true.Have y'all ever... I was going to say, same age as I am, so...
significantly older than Kaladin also, which is so interesting to like put that into perspective of him going like, okay, you child, like stop telling me how to like heal.I have lived like two decades more than you at this point, please go away.
I discovered this, or I was able to verify this.Have y'all ever seen Josh or Jafu of the 17th Shards Stormlight Timeline? I have looked at it.Yes.Yes.So helpful.And one of the things you can do is like filter it by the age of character.
So you can be like, how old was Seth when whatever happened and you just, Oh, it's so interesting.
That is cool.That is really cool.Yeah.I was listening to Cosmo conversations, um, and their latest episode of Dalinar chronologically.And they, they use that tool, uh, significantly.Super helpful.
yeah did anybody also catch an interesting parallel between the way that zeph is acting and some of the common traits attributed to autism yes i was like hello yeah i'm seeing i'm seeing some hue i think you know yes yes the like oh this is right like we have to do what the the town stuff oh yeah the town stuff
the the idea of just tell me what you want don't make me interpret it from subtext just just tell me how to be is still right that's the that's like the super hyper empathy like why am i having to figure this out but also i have found all of this out and that i go back and forth
I am of two minds as to whether I hate Zeth's father or love Zeth's father in this scene.
Because there are moments as I've read this, because Brandon read this at a convention a couple of years ago, and then I read it when I had the preview thing, and then I read it again, and then I listened to you.
And every time I go back and forth on, how dare you look at an 11-year-old child and say, whatever you think is best, that's what we'll do.While everyone is looking at him going, please make the right choice, please make the right choice.
Yeah, that is a child.That is where your guidance is supposed to take hold for somebody who is literally immature by their very nature.
But I think to give him the benefit of the doubt, he is saying, hey, maybe I'm not religious in a legalistic sense, but I'm spiritual in the sense that I do actually really believe this friend gave you this choice because you're the one who found the rock.
I think if you don't look at it passive aggressive, it's beautiful.If you look at it passive aggressive, it's awful.
I still don't fully know where I am on that.I don't think it's passive aggressive.I think it is one of those things where
I mean, if you look at, okay, to make a similar parallel to human history, back during the time, the medieval times, when you had Christianity, which was the state-run religion, and then you had autistic children being born, mixed with the mythology of the Celtic lands, you came up with the changing child.
And was that intentionally malicious?No, it was not intentionally malicious.Did it have some really terrible outcomes because of the fact that it was just kind of an evolution of this myth and etc, etc?Yeah, absolutely.
But I don't think anybody was passive aggressive in this idea of being taking root and and bearing out in culture.So I think it's very much the same here which is I don't think Zeth's father is trying to be passive-aggressive or anything like that.
I think like you said he's he's truly spiritual and he truly believes that the Spren chose Zeth to find this rock for a reason and so therefore the choice should go to him.
Yeah, I think that's totally fair.
That's the way that I viewed it.Like, that's how I viewed it, which was, I don't think Zestfather was trying to be malicious or passive-aggressive or anything.I just think that it was an unfortunate consequence of the way their culture has developed.
Yeah, I think when I really slowed down and I read the line, can't you just tell me what to do.No, I don't think that I can unfair to put you in this spot I know, but this brand gave you the first site, you should.I think when I came back to that.
that portion, I really did go, okay, now turn it off a little bit.This is not manipulative.This is truly an awful scenario and he shouldn't have to make the choice, but that's, you know, it is what it is.
but you can see so many echoes.I mean, four years now, ever since Brandon read the first flashback, Zeth Sundatero saw magic upon the wind, and so he danced.
Like, to see that beautiful little child turn into the, like, well, it would be bet, we'll probably all survive longer than we should person.It's like, oh, it's so awful.It's so hard to watch.
And hopefully we'll see some of that healing come through with Kaladin working on him as they travel through Shinovar.
Or we won't and he'll take up a shard and it'll be crazy.
I mean, that would be a possibility and that would be an interesting result of where this story is going. It would be interesting to see if Zef took on Honor's power instead of Thalinar.
I don't think that's where the story is going, but it would be an interesting result regardless.
It would.It would be very Brandon for Honor's power to not be in the spiritual realm.
like like everyone's convinced that they're going towards it and it's like oh no it was actually in the wind in Shinnevar this whole time and that's true you're you're not wrong honestly so it's why he's a wonderful author to read but it's so hard sometimes once you get this deep into the fandom because you're like wait I cannot trust the cup in front of you so I must drink the cup in front of me but I cannot trust the cup in front of me and it's just yeah
It is it's he is he is one of those authors that is very difficult to predict where he's going because there's a lot of books where I can read and this is no derision of those authors, but you can you can tell based on what they've written before and Where this and what what the subtext is saying and the foreshadowing and everything where the story is going but I have been thrown off by a left turn from bandit Brandon so many times and
Yeah, and then and yeah, we'll do that and then uh, you'll you'll go back and you'll see that all the signs were there Oh, yeah, absolutely When when you look back you can see it was all there But he set it up in such a way to mislead you into a completely different Conclusion than what he actually had planned.
The one that's echoing in my head right now is the death rattle, three of 16 ruled, but now the broken one reigns.
And I recently did that death rattle and I just was left going, there are like five different ways that that could foreshadow Teravangian, the broken one as Odium winning and reigning.Honor, the broken shard, now reigning.
I mean, there's just so many ways that you could take that. I have no way, no idea which way it's gonna go.
Or Zeth takes up the shard and he's broken because Kaladin didn't fix him.Or if Seized was one person that got two shards, why not one shard given to two people?
Zeth, Kaladin duo, buddy cop for eternity.Calling it now. No, I'm not.That's not my prediction.I don't have predictions.We should move on to chapter 28.
Let's do it.Yeah, so which is where I am going to take my leave.
Okay, we will let you part with some shalons.Shalons.
I listened to Kate Redding read this chapter and I was so happy at her voicing of the armor spren.
Okay, I'll have to listen to it.
It's really good, she does a really good job.
It's exactly what I envisioned she would do, which made me so happy.
Nice.I will bid you adieu, and I hope I will talk to you guys next week.
Pasta.Bye.Maybe.Okay. All right.Um, yeah, we'll go into chapter 28 now.I'll see you in just a moment.Well, I mean, it's a chapter, so chapter 28 obstacle. I do not have answers, and there will always be some who denounce me for this decision I made.
But let me teach a truth here that is often misunderstood.Sometimes it is not weakness but strength to stand up and walk away.From The Way of Kings, Fourth Parable
Iatil ran for the larger room, giving Shallan time to reach into her sleeve and activate the Spanread strapped to her arm.A long press locked into position, which would make the ruby on the other Spanread pulse, indicating an emergency.
Shallan turned to run up the steps.Radiance stopped her.She'd fooled Marais and Iatil.She'd done it.They were just people.Deadly, capable, manipulative.But people.
in some ways less capable than Shallan, for if they genuinely had Sprann, they were very new to them, perhaps barely a few days into their bonding.Instead of running, Radiant ripped away the stupid wig and mask. armor," she commanded.Shalon!
It encased her in a heartbeat, a bright glow from the front of her visor illuminating the room.Pattern followed at her summons, a brilliant, silvery sword.And Testament?She would not ask Testament to kill again.
Shallan reached her left arm to the side, and Testament appeared as a powerful shield, affixed to her arm, light as a cloth glyph ward.Shallan was no longer a child, confused, terrified, forced to kill with a gifted necklace.
She had spoken truth, and today she was the radiant she'd once only imagined. From the larger room with the bales of hay, Ittel shouted to the others, the Lightweaver is here.She was impersonating Aline.
Radiant stepped through the doorway, checking the corners.She leveled her weapon at Lieke, who had been right inside.He fled backward, stepping on purple fiercebran.Radiant didn't blame him.
Facing a shardbearer without shards was not a wise proposition, unless you were a storm-faced bridgeman, of course. Across the room, Mraz took her in, then smiled.Storm him, he was proud of her.
He calmly raised his hand ballista and shot a normal, non-lit bolt.She deflected it easily with her shield and was struck by a new fear. What would happen if Anti-Light met a Shard Weapon?Storms.They were in unknown territory.
Iatil ripped the ballista out of Meraze's hands.Nearby, the other Ghostbloods were doing themselves credit.When Shallan had pulled similar operations on groups like the Sons of Honor, there had been massed chaos.
The Ghostbloods moved with deliberate coordination, spreading out, two summoning Shard Blades, others producing conventional weapons.Iatil moved quickest of all, explaining why she'd retreated instead of engaging Shallan.
Stabbing a knight radiant was basically useless.She needed something stronger.Iatil pulled a bolt from Mraize's pouch and raised a now cocked ballista with it loaded, glowing bright.
While Mraize had chosen a conventional bolt, Iatil would shoot anti-stormlight.Shallan ducked back into the trophy room.She glanced over her shoulder and saw the ghost bloods retreating toward the west side of the large chamber.Storms.
Of course they'd have another exit. There was no way in damnation's cold winds that they would trap themselves, which meant she couldn't just hold this room and wait for the others.She stepped into the doorway and shouted, "'Mraes!'
Her helmet amplified the sound, as if she'd spoken with ten times the force."'Wow!'"'Shalaan,' the armor said, somehow conveying, "'You're welcome.'"'Mraes' stopped retreating and turned toward her. Would you become the prey?"
she demanded, running before the axe-hound.Even a master hunter hides from the storm, he called back.I will face you when it is time, little knife.Why not now?she asked, advancing.Eotl was pulling on Mraz's arm to flee, Ballista lowered to her side.
Leke opened a hidden door in the west wall. The others went through, one at a time, no pushing.Shallan held her hands to the sides, dismissing both Pattern and Testament.Go find the others.See what is taking them so long, she whispered to the Spren.
She could resummon them, but didn't want to risk them if that bolt was loosed.Eotl trained the ballista on her, but did not shoot. She knew she had exactly one shot.
The others were escaping, but so long as Eotill and Raze were focused on Shallan, she bought time for the strike force to arrive.I've seen Mishram, Shallan said, lightning in her eyes, hair like midnight.I've seen her.That did it.
The two fixated on her even more squarely.Mishram is imprisoned, Eotill said. Can any prison truly hold a god?"Shallan said, stepping forward.Whatever advantage you think you can gain from her, you're wrong.
She is malevolent and terrible, the essence of hatred, imprisoned for two thousand years.She will destroy you, Mraise.Whatever your plan, it is not worth the risk. Raze clasped his hands behind his back, studying her.Her argument wasn't a good one.
Raze was willing to make big wagers and was not driven by fear, but it was all she'd been able to come up with on the spot.Still, he studied Radiant.Was he thinking about what she'd said?No, Vale thought.
He's thinking how we surprised him by sneaking in here, and how bold we are to stand here, staring down that weapon. We don't have to be enemies, she said to him.You aren't my enemy, he said.You're my obstacle.Eotl shifted.She's going to shoot.
Shallan dove to the side while breathing out and purposefully ejecting all of her stormlight.With some, she created two illusions, one of her jumping in the other direction, another staying in place.Eotl tracked the correct Shallan, then loosed.Go!
Shallan commanded the armor.Shallan?The spren sent, but obeyed, vanishing right as the crossbow bolt took her in the ribs.She tumbled in her dive, grunting at the sudden jolt of pain.She almost drew in stormlight, but forcibly stopped herself.No.No.
The bolt had a metal tip, with a gemstone clipped into the shaft.That tip?It was designed, like the weapons of the fused, to move light.In this case, it injected the anti-light, making it seep through her.
It wasn't painful, not compared to the actual wound, but it was wrong.A cold that prowled through her veins, carried through her body with every beat of her heart.Pain sprang clawed up from the stone ground around her.
This feeling was unnatural, counter to her very nature, but... She felt she could have drawn it in like normal light.
She decided not to try, as it did not seem to be able to hurt her so long as she set her jaw against the pain and refused the normal stormlight that would heal her.Because if those two met...
Through tears of pain, Shallan watched Marais take Iatil by the arm and gesture toward the exit.She instead pulled a knife from its sheath at her belt and moved toward Shallan.Then, blessedly, something distracted them.
Shouts from the hidden hallway?The ceiling in the center of the room, between Shallan and the other two, melted. Stone in a hole maybe eight feet across poured down as if it had suddenly become mud.
It splashed on the floor of the cavern, missing the podium by inches and touching none of the people, then instantly hardened.Through that hole came a dozen windrunners one after another, the last carrying Erinor, Darcyra's husband, a stoneward.
That explained the meltiness.Hand on her wound, bloodied fingers around the crossbow bolt, Shallan met Mraz's eyes. Then he, Iatil, and Lieke, who had been lingering, vanished.
The air around them warped with a light-tinged black-violet, and they were gone. Zeth trailed off, having told Kaladin a little about his family as they walked through the forest for a few hours.
A story of the discovery of a rock, told in fits and starts.Kaladin hadn't interrupted, enjoying hearing the other man open up.Plus, learning about the Shin was genuinely interesting.This time when Zeth trailed off, he didn't continue.
You heard a horn?Kaladin eventually prompted. What did that mean?I'm done for now, Zeth said.Kaladin sighed, but otherwise contained his annoyance.At least the story had been something.They soon reached a sharp drop-off.
Here the trail wound down in a series of steep switchbacks, so they took a quiet jaunt into the sky.Kaladin felt invigorated, bathed in the light of a sun that had passed its zenith and was now working toward the horizon.
Do you have forests near your home? Zeth asked as they lazily drifted down, skimming the tops of the foliage.Not like this, Kaladin said.
I didn't see a true forest until I reached the Shattered Plains and took a trip to the harvesting operations a half day's march north. I always thought there couldn't be trees outside Shinovar," Seth said, stormlight escaping his lips.
How could they grow in a land with no soil?And I, Kaladin said, never imagined you'd have them here, with nothing for their roots to grip. Zeph grunted at that, then lashed himself in a steady swoop along the mountainside.
Kaladin followed as the trees dwindled, and they approached Shinovar proper, a vast plain of vibrant green.Kaladin had seen many a field before, but he realized that up until this moment, he'd never seen something so alive as this prairie.
Though again, there were no lifespan, which he found odd. Regardless, fields back home had grass, but with more space between the blades, so the brown cremestone filtered through.
Here the grass grew like moss, achieving an aggressive density, as if the individual blades had formed mobs, armies, pike blocks. Following Zeth, he landed on an outcropping on the slope.
As Zeth sat down to inspect the land before them, Kaladin walked to the edge, his stormlight giving out, and his full weight settled on him, his feet sinking into the soft soil to an unfamiliar degree.
The entire view, with the rolling hills of green and a thick blanket of grass, made him think of an ocean, each of those hills a swell or wave, with trees like ships. There was even what he thought might be a herd of wild horses in the distance.
Incredible.I see it now, Kaladin whispered.What? Zeth asked.I see how your land survives.That grass?It doesn't move, doesn't react.Yet it feels as if it could swallow everything, like it wants to consume me.It will, once you die.Zeth said softly.
It will take all of us.Undoubtedly later than we deserve.What a delightful way of thinking.Sel landed next to Kaladin, becoming full-sized and trimmed in violet.She was grinning naturally. Look at the solitary trees," she said, pointing.
Look at them just sitting there alone without a care in the world.Here, trees didn't need companions with whom to walk roots.But Kaladin, now that he thought to look closer, found the buildings more unusual.
This region wasn't terribly well populated, but he picked out one town, maybe the size of Hearthstone, and several lonely homesteads. Those buildings seemed so unprotected, practically shouting for the storms to take them.
Though they were distant, he thought they were wooden and appeared flimsy, with flat walls to the east and windows on those sides as well.
He knew people here didn't have to fight the storms, but those homes unnerved him, made him think the people must be weak, innocent, in need of protection, like lost children wandering a battlefield.This is wrong, Seth said.
Yeah, Kaladin said, kneeling beside him in the knee-high grass.How do people live here?Peacefully, when your kind let them, Zeth said, his eyes narrowed.He sat somewhat awkwardly, the strange black sword strapped to his back.
It was a good example of why one normally summoned a Shardblade instead of carrying it.The weapon was awkwardly sized, too long to be worn at the waist but difficult to draw when strapped to the back like that.Zath glanced at him and shook his head.
Something is wrong here.Not the things you see with a stonewalker's perspective, Kaladin.Look.Does that region seem... darker than it should? Kaladin followed Seth's pointing finger to a rise on the right along the cliff sides of the mountain.
It was darker than the stones and soil around it, but there was no visible cloud to cause that shadow.Kaladin narrowed his eyes and thought he could see wisps of blackness rising from it. What's over there?Kaladin asked.The monastery, Zeth said.
We have ten of them.Most are homes of the Honorblades, the legendary weapons of the Heralds.Zeth had wielded one when killing old King Gavilar.It, unfortunately, had fallen into other hands.The hands of a man who should have been Kaladin's brother.
You keep the Honor Blades in monasteries?"Kaladin asked.One for each Radiant Order, though Talmud's is missing, of course, as is Nin's.Isshu has claimed his too, now.
Regardless, when a person is elevated as I was in my youth, they travel to each monastery on a pilgrimage, training at those that have an Honor Blade, mastering each search.That one ahead is the first I lived in, but it has no blade.
Sel asked from the edge of their overlook, gazing straight along the mountainside to that distant fortress on the ridge.Which blade should it have held?Talnmuts, Zeth said.You call him Talenallat, or Taln.Stone Sinyu, the bearer of agonies.
The darkness, Kaladin said, reminds me of the darkness around the Kolinar Palace.An unmade lived there.You really met one here in Shinovar?Yes, Seth said softly.When was this, Kaladin said, after you discovered a rock on your family's ground?
He hoped to prompt more of the story.The meeting was much later, Seth said, but that day with the rock and the raid, that was the beginning. Do you want to tell me more?"Kaladin asked.None of that matters.All that matters is the quest.
And the people, your family, the... None of it matters, Zeth repeated.We should camp here for the night and visit the monastery in the morning, unless you want to investigate that place now.
Kaladin shoved aside his annoyance at Zeth and looked again at the patch of darkness.Then he glanced at the sun, which was getting close to setting.He wasn't certain how all this connected.Ishar, Dalinar's request of him, and Zeth's story.
But if there was an Unmade, he didn't want to risk encountering it at night.Kaladin had faced them at Kolinar, where he'd failed to protect the people.
Even the Unmade he'd eventually defeated, when it had worn Amram's body, had been extremely dangerous. Camping sounds good, Kaladin said, but let's do it farther back and around that bend to shelter the cook fire.We don't need a cook fire, Seth said.
We have travel rations.Kaladin insisted, however.Thankfully, Seth joined him and offered no further complaint about a cook fire.Because Kaladin needed this man to open up, and he figured he'd try an old standby.The end of chapter 28.
What could his plan be with a cook fire?
I don't know.I'm going to have to stew on it for a bit.Sometimes I have to just... That was great.Those were... So the first thing I don't want to forget about, is we have something new about Shallan.
We have something very strange, and if I remember correctly, not mentioned before. I'm going to read the paragraph again.Shallan was no longer a child, confused, terrified, forced to kill with a gifted necklace.
She had spoken truth, capital T truth, by the way.And she was the radiant she'd once only imagined.Forced to kill with a gifted necklace?
What does that mean?Oh, her father.Her father gave her the aluminum necklace.And she used the aluminum necklace to strangle him.
Oh, I forgot that.Yeah.I'm glad that wasn't some sort of massive revelation in the middle of an action chapter.
That's how Shallan works though.I mean, it's totally fair to be like, wait, do we know this about Shallan yet?
That's true.That, man, I don't have time to reread the Stormlight Archive.
I did it as part of Lord Loopy, Zach on TikTok, did a book club for the whole Cosmere in a year and doing it along with them was wonderful.Here's the other thing that blew my mind, okay?
Did you know that Dalinar's father was mentally crippled in a duel? I had no idea about that, but it's in Oathbringer.It's in the flashback.He thinks about it and it puts all of his life.So there's just so many little things that are just blinking.
You miss it, you know, Oh, I'm listening to this moments in, in the stormlight.It's amazing.Wow.
That's it's worth a reread.I might do it, you know, before stormlight six.
Hopefully, hopefully, you got a lot of time before Stormlight Six, unfortunately.
Hopefully, yeah.I've gotta get through the Mistborn books before the panel on Mistborn Era Three.Otherwise, I'm gonna look like a poser and an imposter syndrome is bad enough.Yeah, that's fair.Okay, so we got the culmination of
Shallan's story in Wind and Truth so far in this chapter.More might happen with the next scene we have with her where the Windrunners might be able to capture, wait, no, they're not going to.So we got confirmations.
Last week, there was a big to-do about what Eotill and Mraes's Spren might be.I think we got some confirmation here.
It is one of them either has an ink spren or a light spren.That's all we can know for sure.Because it's black violet, I would guess it's an ink spren.
But if the surges work the same way regardless of which spren you're bonded to, then it could be... I don't think that they would bond a reacher.
An enlightened reacher, who knows, right?That's the trick.But it does seem, especially with the emphasis on Inkspren and the gateways, the Oathgate Inkspren being enlightened, just feels like there's a lot of emphasis on Inkspren so far.
That seems to me to be the most straightforward assumption.
There is another possibility that I think is really only slightly worth considering, and that is an Enlightened Sprend giving a third surge of sorts.If we consider Ranarin's future site as a sort of third surge,
If every enlightened Spren has some sort of third ability, there is no confirmation that that third ability is shared between all enlightened Spren, regardless of type.
So there is a possibility that any intelligent Spren that could make a bond enlightened might give a third ability that is transportation. It's conceivable, definitely.It's conceivable.
I could see, oh, honor spren, not that I think that they would really choose to be enlightened, but honor spren, okay, they fly and adhere, so you could twist that to be like, okay, those two combined, maybe transportation of some sort.
But that's just superficial thinking.Don't really need to go too deep into that.I'm betting it's an ink spren.
Yeah, it's also weird that if we look back at Words of Radiance epigraphs, there is that one about the truth watcher who says, I must whisper this, I foresaw this.
So there's even some historical evidence that truth watchers had some capacity for future sight on their own.But I like the idea that what Jannat does is enhance the spiritual aspect of a spren in the same way that Dalinar is
adhering with spiritual adhesion, right?So he is able to not just stick things together, but I'm gonna stick my soul to you and now I know your language.
I could see Ja doing something that makes the Spren able to use the spiritual component of their surge more easily than traditional, but who knows?
Yeah, that makes sense.I like that.That keeps the magic system a little more focused, I think. Granting some sort of third ability would start sprawling it maybe a bit too much.
It's real crazy real fast, yeah.
Yeah.So that, that makes sense.So potentially, okay.
If we take that theory, then an ink spren being enlightened, um, there was some talk last week about Marais and Etel going into the spiritual realm to follow Dalinar that might give them an easier out, right.Or even an easier in, um, as it were.
As it were.Yeah.Either, um, depending on when they need them, but I could also see them being stuck in time and then popping out somewhere very far in the future where we're not expecting them.
And like Isles of Ember Dark, they just, oh, hey, by the way, here's somebody whose name is Raisin and it's actually Mraz.
Yeah, that is, I mean, that one sentence from Wit a couple of chapters back now makes it so that Brandon has the Chekhov's gun of, I can pop anybody I want into the spiritual realm and I can pop them out at era four Mistborn climax if I want to.
Don't have to do it, but I can if I want to.
That's true.It also gives an extra way of how Felt could have gotten from Mistborn Era 1 into Stormlight.I mean, if I remember the words of Brandon, which we all know have to be taken with a pinch of salt, because they can change.
Silverlight University has a high concentration of investiture, so time passes more slowly there, or time warps with more investiture, which seems like it's drawing on the simple, it's an
it is a logical conclusion that if the spiritual realm is filled with investiture, then that kind of time passage could happen or not happen very easily.
And then, okay, so now you're concentrating investiture in this other place, then time starts slowing down.It's relative, right?It's all relativity.
Ooh, well, and that even, oh, that's so interesting, right?How do you concentrate an investiture if it's a place without place, right?
If there's no X and Y coordinates, what does it mean to, like, is any of, and that's maybe why, like, time can go fast and slow, because maybe in those vision moments, you might have a higher concentration, time relativity happens differently.
Yeah, it's the spiritual realm.I do think the spiritual realm has been, cordoned off a little bit from what I thought it was at one point, because the implication seems to be that the past exists completely in the spiritual realm, but not the future.
There's possibilities of the future.You can see what fortune has in store, but there's not a way, in the way that Kaladin yanks Tien's soul from the spiritual realm past and talks to him, you couldn't yank
future Dalinar's soul from the future, but you maybe could talk to a version of Dalinar that might exist in the future, maybe.Because when I hear all places and all times, I'm thinking future and past at the same time.But that is different.
You could say the spiritual realm can only contain the past because the future hasn't happened yet from your perspective.I don't know.It gets really weird really fast.
It does get really weird, really fast.I'm just glad that Sanderson has stated it's not a time travel book.
Yes.It's at least a past time travel.We're going, we're going to somewhere.
It is.Yeah.Yeah.But physically coming out in the physical realm in the past is not going to happen, which is the key there.In
Shallan's portion of this, we didn't learn a whole lot other than, like I was saying, this is a culmination of what Shallan has been doing through the book up until now.And I personally thought it was going to come to Marais and Shallan fighting.
So I am pleasantly surprised that they're not. But where do we go from here?Other than Reza's still a threat, Iatil's still a threat.Everybody's still a threat, nothing?
You've got at least the people he was gonna leave behind potentially capturable, right?So like the heads of the Ghostblood have fled, but they were gonna leave anyway.So in some ways it's like, okay, we've cut off the body of the Ghostbloods,
at least the primary body of the Ghostbloods on Roshar.
I mean, it's unclear, but it feels like if you've got a Stoneward and a bunch of Windrunners and they all went down one tunnel and it's the Shattered Plains, like surely we can catch them at this point.
Ideally, even with Shardblades and other weapons and who knows what abilities.
I did feel bad for that room when Shalon is just like, boom.And it's, I, ooh, that'd be scary.That would be horrifying.
I had a nightmare the other night where I was stopped at an intersection in the middle of it because the intersection was designed weird.And then there was a large semi truck that had stopped at a light adjacent to me, facing me.
And then out of nowhere, something hit it from behind and pushed it like, 60 miles an hour into my car and I woke up with my heart beating out of my chest.
And I feel like that's how I would feel if I came across a Shardbearer with no way of defending myself.
It was a weird nightmare. That's a weird nightmare.I keep thinking about the applications of two living Spren, which I'm sure are much more interesting than the one that just came to my mind, which is bullet and gun.
But there's so many options with, yeah, sword and shield is a very classic one, but the imagination.
Yeah, you know, that's simpler gun and metal is the big restrictor, right?You ha it has to be made of metal.Um, so you still need a string, but yeah, I mean, you have the bow and the arrow, but you can just need to string it real quick.
One of my highlights of, I got to DM the Stormlight Archive during the playtest for the, when they were otherwise making it.One of my players was a Dustbringer that swore his third ideal mid-combat and manifested his shard blade as an arrow.
And so he's firing, like he's now firing the shard arrow across the battlefield.And it was- materializes back in your hand.It was so much fun.
That is very cool.Yeah, I can't wait for that to come out.It's going to be brilliant.That was, I mean, we didn't really get very much.Yeah, we didn't get a whole lot of like, oh my God.
Yeah, I do want to know what happens if she tries to utilize the anti light like is that going to be able to fuel her in the same way.
I do, at some point, I feel like we need to see somebody like an inexperienced radiant who doesn't know what just happened.Right, it's gonna heal and explode.Probably.
It has the same vision to me as the scene from Mistborn where they're talking about the Allomancer who had like pulled themself in half because they pulled on the left and the right and they didn't have pewter to keep themselves, because Vin is opening a door or Marsh is opening a door and she thinks, oh, if I didn't have pewter, this would just rip me in half right now.
Yeah, that's... Oh man.And then in Name of the Wind, have you read Name of the Wind?Yeah.I may have.Who hasn't these days?
People who realize it's not ever going to get a third book.Those are the people.
I have specifically told somebody, this is an amazing series.Don't read it until you know Doors of Stone is coming out and it has a published date.They talk about that one,
student who Channeled too much energy through himself and cooked cooked himself from the inside That that kind of sticks with you Gross.
Yeah, I want to know what happens if she ingests the anti light and tries to use it The opposite of the surge happens so you unstick things if you have adhesion and Man, you, you gain more gravity.
If you, yeah, it gets, it's really, I mean, in theory, why not?Right.It's like tower light works and stormlight works.Theoretically void light should work if you can take it in.I mean, that's the tricky part, but that is the trick.
So I don't know why.I don't know.It's, it is weird.It's a weird concept.
That is weird.Cause it's.Cause it's just the intent that's inverted.
Yeah, that's right.That's right.
So it's still quantified.It's still investiture.Yeah, it's still investiture.
It is one of those things where that kind of moment reminds me we still have five and a half books.And this is only 10 days of those five and a half books.So I know that none of that is really gonna get fully explored, right?
Maybe some of it, but there's just so much still to explore with five books left to go.
I bet we'll see some instances of things they won't be explained, but they will be examples.And then in the later books we'll get full explanations or closer to full explanations.
Well, and you know, what's interesting, a light tinged black violet feels like that implies that they're using void light, that this is an enlightened spren using void light for the transportation.Because it's not like what Dalinar talks about.
And I have to, I have to go back to Yasna's else calling that she does.We have not seen a lot of else calling, which I think part of that is it's a cheat code that changes everything.I mean, Brandon wrote The End of Wheel of Time.
He knows what happens when gateways are a thing and people can use them.It changes everything instantaneously. And not always in a good way.In a, the world is broken way.
It doesn't matter how big, you know, I, my like big theory on the wall that I want to have happen is an army of chasm fiends teleporting into a battle, right.Being ridden by the wheel shapers that Venli is going to go collect together.
And I think it would just be amazing.
That would be sick.That would be that would be great.Now that's got to happen.And he definitely has time to rewrite this.Yeah.And chasm fiends coming papers.That's brilliant.I yeah, it really black violets because he could have just said violet.
He could have just said Shimmering, but he said black.So that does imply that doesn't play void light.That's terrifying.
Cool.Which then Renarin maybe is the Renarin or Relain maybe are the people who get to explore with, wait a minute, I can use this light in a way that, and like, what does that feel like?
What does it feel, you know, if, if stormlight surges you onward and tower light calms you down, void light takes away your emotions completely.And he has the void.Or it makes you feel them. Yeah, right.You're feeling everything passion and all that.
Yeah. Yeah, and I was reading a book earlier and it was explaining what compassion meant.Cause it was one of those self-help books about burnout.And it said the word passion means to suffer.
So compassion, calm is with, so to suffer with when you're showing somebody compassion.So Odium calling itself passion is still, yeah. taken to that absolute definition of it.
Which is interesting because the interlude emphasizes that, right?It emphasizes his feeling of the suffering of the universe, the Cosmere, the star cluster, as they say.
Well, that was the thing.He's apparently updated.He uses the term star cluster now.
It's even smaller than a dwarf galaxy because he realized that dwarf galaxies are actually even bigger still than he really wants things for when you start traveling in space between the planets.
Yeah, I relatively, Gary of Cosmere Junkie maybe, somebody pointed that out to me and I went back and found like four or five different, like as you go through the words of Brandon, you can see it evolve from, oh, it's a dwarf galaxy, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then later he's like, well, I mean, maybe it's too big and so we need to make it a star cluster instead.But yeah, it's relative to the universe.
Yeah, in that interlude, Odium, uses the word galaxy.
Oh, probably.Yeah.That makes sense.
I could feel everything in this miserable galaxy.
Yeah.Infinite capacity to feel infinite capacity to infinite capacity for agony.Yeah.What a great interlude.That was a good one.It was really nice.That was, Too good, man.It's too good.
What did he say about, no, wait, that's not what I want to come in.Is that the, okay, yeah, that is.I want to see what he says about galaxy now.And the very substance of passion and where a person suffers anywhere in this miserable galaxy, I feel it.
That is such an interesting moment. Cause almost always they would use the word Cosmere in that, like in that phrasing, if I was going to word, like, yeah, that's really interesting.Nobody ever uses that word.
Right.And then Galaxy, I mean, I know we're doing the whole, like he's translating it from that language to this language, but Galaxy comes from, if I remember correctly, something from milk.
Yeah, because the stars looked milky.
Yeah.Because the Milky Way is literally just galaxy, galaxy, basically, which is just classic.
That is classic.That is. Lucifer Morningstar Lightbringer Lightbringer.
Yeah, and and more there's that one wasn't there that one hill in England that's named like Hill Hill Hill, there's three different ways thing Hill by depending on who Anyways onto the Zeph Zeph Kaledon bit of this chapter Yeah
I am really fascinated by the idea that this is the first set of flashbacks that we are going to get active dialogue about as the character is remembering them.
Because Dalinar wrote a book about it, and then later you get people reacting to what he's remembered.But this is like, that what we read appears to be what Zeth is going to be telling Kaladin.
And so, and then Kaladin's like responding to the, like, it's just a very different device than we've seen before.In the past, it's just been, oh, this is the character remembering these things or like emphasizing them internally.
Whereas now it's gonna be, oh, like I told Kaladin this, and now we're gonna talk about the flashback that just happened.It's just a very different literary device.I'm really excited for that. especially from Therapist Kaladin's perspective.
Right.In this, we have a promise, which is that they are going to go investigate the monastery.Yeah.This is making me feel a little... Danny Arguetty?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s
This feels too on the nose is what I was, but he has to get through a lot of book in 10 days and like, he's only got so much to do it.So that's fine.But it is, it's giving a clear promise.They're going to go.Yeah.Fine.
Unless they wake up in the morning and it's gone.Right?Like how, how interesting would that be?You wake up and it's like, Oh wait, what?
That would be cool.That would be a nice twist.
It'd be a very like, cause Brandon has a huge history in D and D and in role playing games.And it would be a funny like twist on the trope where the characters are like, no, wait, we should rest.We should go during the day.
We should go when it's light.Like there's no reason to rush in.Let's get a long rest in.You wake up.Oh, wait a minute.The thing is gone.Yeah.
That would not surprise me actually.
But I also, I mean, I think the reason I don't feel it's too MacGuffin-y is Zeth intentionally came towards where he used to live and we know he has a history with this unmade.
And so I think there's kind of a logical narrative connection of, okay, Zeth is going to places important to him and the unmade is in places important to him. for some, you know, for some historical reason there.And it's one of the shaman places.
So I think I think those things come together to where I'm pretty comfortable with it.
That's Yeah, for sure.There's not. Taken in isolation, yeah, a little on the nose.Taken with, you know what I'm saying, supporting it, it's a clear, especially there's theories that it's one of the unmade we haven't seen.
I'm gonna be surprised if it is an unmade we've seen.But the- It would be a strange move, right?It would be a really weird move. So there's that one that was involved with the destruction of amia is what that that history.I don't remember what The
note is on that one.But it could be that, and people were suggesting it could have had something to do with stone or earthquakes or being in the ground, which could play into the Shin religion of the whole stone stuff.If it was involved in
The scouring of Amy is the term that was used in the book, right?So that could be earthquakes, is I guess what the theory there is.I don't know if I subscribe to that yet.
But I'm, I'm, yeah, I mean, um, yeah.Digo Narthas is the one, the black Fisher.Um, yeah, that makes sense.
The F F F I S S U R E or F I O. Well, it's F I S H E R Fisher.What if it's a play on words and it's actually, I, so,
I really want him to do more of that.I think the reality that it's a translated work stops him because there is the one of now the broken one reigns and someone asked him, hey, did they write it down right?Is it supposed to be R-A-I-N-S?
Like honor is the broken one and he reigns on Roshar because of the storm father.And he said, no, I don't want to do things like that because it's translated and you can trust that if I've written it down that way, that is,
you know, what it's supposed to be, but I don't, I don't hate that idea either.I think it'd be fun.It gets harder when you translate to like Spanish and Italian and all the other languages though.That's true.Yeah.
Yeah.I, what do we know about Diagon Arthas?Not a lot.Diagon Arthas is one of the ones that's like, who knows what it does.
Yep.That's why.Yeah.We're hopefully going to find out at some point.That'd be weird if we didn't. It could be Bayer to Mishram, and she... No, probably not.
Probably not.That would be weird.
That would be a very strange... That wouldn't be a payoff for what we just set up with Dalinar and Shallan.That'd be weird.
Yeah, Bada Mishram is such an interesting, like watching the evolution of what you can realize in Oathbringer and then in Rhythm of War and all of the foreshadowing there of how the connection for the singers was severed by that.
It's really interesting.And what are the ghostbloods gain?Like what is Yadl hoping that Kelsior can use bottom is from to accomplish.Like, what does it mean to control the shards using bottom?Right.And you know, it's, it's, ah, it's fascinating.
Does Kelsior even want that or is going in and being like, well, he wants this, whether he likes it or not.
He just doesn't realize what I've got for him.Just right.He'll understand later.
And then she implied that Aline had her own plans and they do have Aline captured.So there's at least that.Oh, that's true.
I expect one bit between Dalinar being in the spiritual realm and coming back out is probably going to be forming a connection somehow to make Aline talk.Not make Aline talk, but make her understandable regardless of what she says.So I don't know.
That's just a little vignette that played in my head.Or Navani would.I guess Navani could do that.Yeah.
Yeah, I like that idea. I mean, really, once you start doing, I mean, you're eating a really interesting idea of like spiritual adhesion and connection.We saw that Dalinar was able to touch, nail, and see his past, right?
So like, once you start opening that up and really thinking about what you can do with that, yeah, I mean, you can really make some interrogation possibilities of, hey, you don't wanna tell me this?
Awesome, let me spiritually connect to your past, and I'm gonna see it, whether you tell me or not.
Dang, that could be really, huh.I could see potentially Navani playing off that with how she's telling the sibling not to spy on people in the tower.
I don't feel like, Sanderson's not really playing that up as like a character development thing going on, but it could be a moment where, okay, now Navani now has to decide between
Essentially spying on this person's past and learning things that she shouldn't be able to learn without her powers or It could be I don't know little vignettes that probably won't happen.That's yeah, I
when I, I've been pondering on this is like, so Dalinar's power seems to be perpendicularities.Cause Whit points out, Hey, you as a bondsmith can make a perpendicularity, not Navani, but you.
So, you know, and she seems to have the make spren go away power.Like I really found that fascinating when she's just telling the anxiety spren go away and they leave.I'm like, Whoa, wait a minute.That's, that's pretty cool.
That's an interesting power to have.I,
Perpendicularity thing was interesting.I do wanna, I wanna push back on that.The phrasing specifically here, well, Witt said, you once had to use a high storm and the Stormfather's powers, but you're bondsmiths now.
You can open up your perpendicularity and push into the spiritual realm.
I still think that it's mainly Dalinar that can do the perpendicularity and that that shouldn't be, but it's hard to know without Navani trying to open a perpendicularity on screen.We haven't gotten it yet.
Once we do, then that will make sense or it will be, oh, you can't do that, then Dalinar is special in this way. It does but from what we were learning in Oathbringers like the Stormfather was confused about what is this?
I haven't seen this Then why like the sibling hasn't changed And it seems to be Dalinar special So why would Navani do it?Anyways, I yeah
It's odd.It gets very odd very quickly.I guess the thesis would be you need to be more connected to one of the shardic pieces, right?To like maybe, maybe, but it's hard to say.
I mean, Nomani's superpower seems to be like being able to do the tower light.Cause actually now that I say that out loud, tower lights basically a perpendicularity.
right like wrong that's functionally a localized perpendicularity for the tower that's constantly infusing it with light so that yeah that's fair i mean she's she's got a perpendicularity it's just not A perpendicular is not opening constantly.
Yeah.It's close to perpendicularly, but like the Stormfather, he has the moment between moments.And that is a sort of specific way we can talk about how he fills Stormlight, or he puts Stormlight in the gems.
But that's not quite a perpendicularity like a standard perpendicularity would be. But because Navani and the sibling have that, that is really close to it being a perpendicularity by itself.
It's serving a similar purpose anyway.It is, certainly.
So many questions.Come on.
Only 10 days.Eight more days.
Don't remind me of that.And how many more chapter releases? Is it just four chapter releases?
Yeah, it's four more.It's like eight more chapters or something insane.Seven, I think.I think it's seven.Oh man.
Man.Yeah.Okay.Is there anything else to say on the magic that were these chapters?
Um, I mean, here we get more of that affirmation that Spren just don't seem to inhabit Shinovar the way they do the rest of Roshar.
I mean, Risen's interlude kind of showed that a little bit, but Risen wasn't really commenting on it to the same degree that Kaladin is.Kaladin's really hammering it home.Hey, there are no Spren around here.What's going on?
Why are there no Spren around here? And maybe that's just because of the people of Shinovar believe that they exist inside of the objects and so they can't manifest outside of because they're not expected to.
It's hard to say but those are the big things for me.The epigraph continues to highlight that there is a weird theme of people leaving in this, this book series.
I was thinking about it today, Liran refuses to leave Hearthstone, and that's functionally his biggest like that is the source of his biggest heartaches, because if he left.
then there would be harm to his people, sure, but Kaladin doesn't get taken, Tien doesn't get taken, and maybe it's harder, but you get to Karbranth, and you do all those things.The people left Ashen to come to Roshar.
The people left Shinovar, rightly or wrongly.They left Taln in Braze. In Rhythm of War, you start with an entire town leaving Hearthstone and going to Eurythiru.
It's like, I don't know, just leaving is just a huge... Do y'all talk about the interludes that Sanderson has read at conventions?
Yes, we do.Those are available for discussion.
Okay, the Iriali, leaving Roshar.I mean, it's a huge theme in this series and Wind and Truth is just hammering it home thematically.So I don't know, I don't know what that means.It feels like it means that somebody or some group is gonna be leaving.
I mean, Rock leaving the party, it's just, yeah, there's a lot of leaving.
There's a lot of leaving, yeah, yeah. I hope everybody is all right if everybody left.
I mean, Hoyt, right?Hoyt is about to leave Roshar for 20 to 30 years and go be a hobo slash waxes driver.
He's where he's needed.Yeah.
That's, that's a good point.Um, good point on that theme, uh, for the, for the arches, uh, we have, uh, that first for chapter 27, it's Ishar, um, which his thing is piety, which makes sense for that chapter.All four are Ishar.
And then for Obstacle, chapter 28, all four are Chenerech, which the patron herald of the Dustbringers, a lot of fighting and destruction there.I'm sure there's more specifics.
Oh, can I share my way?I think that's there.
I am a huge, huge proponent of the Shana Mahama theory.Oh, same.Yes.
And so if we've got, I mean, even I was, I'm doing my Rhythm of War reread and I was reminded that Shallan basically uses the name Shana as her alias when she's infiltrating the Sons of Honor. It's like Shana, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, oh yeah, you're named after Shana Rock.And I'm like, yes, she is.Yeah.
Yeah.And Shana Rock would have named her daughter after one of her good friends.
I'm a big proponent of that.And then somebody at Dragonsteel last year, he came up to me after we had just done our panel, our live recording.
And we talked about that theory and this guy goes, so you're telling me that Shallan's father could pull a herald.I was like, you know what, that is the biggest argument against it.You're right.But yes, that is what I'm telling you.That's funny.
Oh, well then you just always go back for me to the first flashback for shall on the world ended and shall on was to blame.
It makes too much sense.Yeah.Okay. I think that's it.I think we did it.That's it.That's all I got.Great.We are going to sign off now.Griff's not here, so I'm just going to do my bit.Are you prepared?Yes.Oh, yeah.Oh, yeah.Okay, great.
So thank you for being on.And life before death, strength before weakness.
Listeners before Parshendi. Nice.
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