#Rhythm of war spoilers

[lamaery]

Looking for a stormy or colorful summer beach read? @priscellie and Ihad way too much fun creating some romance novel versions of Rhythm of War and Warbreaker. I made the illustrations and Priscillie made them look like actual books – beautifully ridiculous, curly typography, mock-up and all. I hope that there will be more :D

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Image description: (by Priscillie) Photomanipulation of two battered paperback pulp romance novels that look straight out of a thrift store bargain bin in the 1980s. The books are RHYTHM OF WAR and WARBREAKER by Sandra Branderson. RHYTHM OF WAR features an illustration of Navani and Raboniel experimenting with light, Raboniel looming behind Navani and leaning in, their faces almost touching. Raboniel streams voidlight from her image-left hand, which travels like lightning through Navani's tuning fork and into the sphere in Navani's gloved safehand. It's the primary source of light in the scene, and the background is nothing but murky darkness. Raboniel focuses intently, her red eyes alien and unknowable, as she focuses on her work. One of Navani's unkempt locks of hair just brushes the corner of Raboniel's mouth, and I'm not normal about it. Navani looks like she's gone three days without changing clothes and that she's slept in her hairstyle a similar number of nights. The collar of her havah is open, revealing her collarbones. Her expression is a mix of amazement, fear, and exhaustion, her mouth slightly open and her head tilted back slightly. Her face is lit from below by their experiment. The title and author's name are angled at a sharp diagonal, with strong capital letters and the occasional flourish. At the top is the tagline "In the Heart of War... Passion and Honor are Fused!" In one corner is some publication information, with a little logo of a seal and the words "A 'Sealed With a Kiss' Paperback," the fake ISBN 17S-631-1123-1210 (the last two sets of numbers being our birthdays), and prices in America and Canada. The other book is Warbreaker, also by Sandra Branderson. The illustration depicts Susebron and Siri in a ridiculously overblown, windswept Fabio-style cover, with a shirtless Susebron holding Siri so she's half sitting on his chest, one knee up with her thigh along his chest, her legs off to one side, and with her body twisted so she's facing him with her upper body, leaning down to him, a breath away from kissing him. She's wearing a teal dress with a Mesoamerican vibe that reveals her midriff and leaves her shoulders bare, but with a long train that blows off to the side. Her arms are painted in looping gold shapes. Her hair is blonde for most of its length, but it's beginning to change to a vivid red at the scalp. It's wrapped in teal ribbon to match her dress. Susebron has long, sleek black hair caught by the wind, chunky gold earrings and a slim gold cuff at his upper arm, and is wrapped in long white strips of awakened cloth that snake through the image in an energetic explosion of fabric. He gazes at her in handsome adoration and abandon, and she gazes back in love tempered by concern. The title has the same diagonal and italicized design with the same typeface and flourishes, but the title is jazzed up with shimmery, iridescent type. At the top is the tagling "She was forced to marry a god... Then she took his breath away!"

[sebarial-the-economist]

I wonder if Jasnah (who was locked away in a dark room as a child) is ever going to find out about Kaladins new mental health treatment (don't lock people away in dark rooms). I bet she'll like it.

[emily-e-draws]

Honorblade.

my artwork for the @cosmere-mini-bang, a fandom challenge involving collaboration between fic writers and artists! this piece is for The Fibonacci Sequence by Wimble_Rose, a canon-divergent fic about Moash :-)

[gallium-spoon]

I've reached the part of Rhythm of War where Kaladin invents group therapy but also refuses to go to group therapy

Kaladin: I think it would be helpful to get a group of people who have been through similar trauma together in a safe calm environment where they could talk to each other. They could support each other and won't feel judged because they've had similar experiences. I think this will work because I've been through some traumatic events and I would benefit from something like that

Kaladin's friends: so you'll be joining this group too right?

Kaladin: Oh. No.

[nevertheless-moving]

adolin half teasing kaladin while out for drinks sometime in Urithiru: you know your feats on the shattered plains aren't quite as impressive now that I've seen more of your magic glowing powers thing.

Kalidan: hm

Adolin: knew there was something weird about you. Ha. I mean i was amazed at the time, but surviving the fall from that bridge sabotage isn't really anything now that I've seen-

Kalidan: actually I didn't have my powers for that part

Adolin: what

Shallan: it's true he didn't

Kalidan: Lost syl right after prison, I got maybe a chip of stormlight while falling , just enough to not die, no powers the rest of the time

Adolin: how

Kalidan: I already explained the whole - with elhokar and moash -

Adolin: no, i mean, the highstorm -

Kaladin: yeah that was shallan

Shallan: shardblade cubby cut out part way up the wall

Adolin: and the chasm fiend? It really was already dead -

Shallan: no very much alive, very much tried to kill us

Adolin: and you-

Shallan: no that was kaladin

Adolin: what

Kaladin: I mean you did distract it, and I wouldn't have been able to do anything without your pattern blade

Adolin: you killed a chasm fiend. Without special powers.

Kaladin: I mean shallan-

Shallan: he jumped right in its mouth!

Adolin: i - you killed a chasm fiend. Without any other fighters. By yourself. Without radiant powers. You're - you're sure? No special abilities?

Kaladin: it was a pretty painful time, yes I'm sure. Did some spear katas. Noticeable difference without the bond with syl.

Adolin: you fought the chasm fiend. handicapped.

Kaladin: I guess? I dont know if it's handicapped considering, you know, most people don't ever breathe stormlight.

Adolin: you killed a chasm fiend singlehandedly. Without shardplate. And without any powers.

Kaladin: you're repeating yourself

Shallan: ...it was pretty impressive

Kaladin: you saw how messed up my leg got!

Adolin:

Adolin: I hate you so much.

[azure-sorceress]

One thing I absolutely love about the way Sanderson wrote Gavilar is how the reader's perception of him slowly changes as the books go along.

In The Way of Kings we are under the impression Gavilar was not only a great king, but a great person as well. The highprinces respected him where they don't respect Elhokar. Dalinar talks about him as a perfect brother, Elhokar talks about him as a perfect father and even Jasnah misses him. Only Navani seems to be a little glad he's gone, but we can easily disregard that knowing she's in love with Dalinar.

This perception of him stays mostly unchanged in Words of Radiance, but by Oathbringer this picture of the perfect king and good person starts to crumble. We have confirmation in the prologue that he wanted to bring back the Desolations and that was the only reason he had made the deal with the Listeners in the first place.

In Dalinar's flashbacks we see how he used Dalinar as his war machine, how his conquest turned Dalinar into a man that could not live without a war, and didn't give him a purpose beyond that once the fighting was over. We see how Dalinar gave up everything for his brother but got very little in return. Gavilar wouldn't even let Dalinar finally relax and spend time with his first son, he had to imidiately give him a war to fight lest he find that he could live without being the Blackthorn. We see how he didn't try to help his brother when he was a drunk and let him destroy himself.

At this point it's clear that Gavilar was not really a good person, even if Dalinar doesn't see it that way. But he's not tha bad, right? Dalinar did most of these things because he wanted to, Gavilar only pointed him in the direction he wanted to.

And then we get to Rhythm of War, where we find out that Navani's imposter symdrome, that has been so prevelant in the books since the beginning is all Gavilar's fault. He made her feel she wasn't really an artifabrian, that she wasn't intellegent, made her feel like she was a cheater despite the fact that she always remained loyal to him. He made it clear he didn't care about Jasnah's feelings when it came to marrying Amaram and how he didn't see Elhokar as a fit heir. Gavilar's family all cared about him so much, and yet, here we see how little he cared about them.

By this time we're all cheering Szeth when he kills this man because he didn't deserve a single good thing that was said about him throughout the entire series. Gavilar dying was the best thing that happened to all these characters and that realization is amazing.

[sailorspren]

I'm not a cosmere theories freak but I do have one theory I'm very passionate about which is that the pure tones of Roshar sound like sine wave synths! Let me explain :) I am taking "pure" to mean "consisting of only one note (and no overtones)", which is basically the definition of a sine wave. A sine wave is the representation of a single frequency with no harmonics and is considered an acoustically pure tone. Sine waves don't occur naturally - real world sounds always have overtones, in varying quantities. We can synthesize sine waves, however, and they sound like this (I played it in different pitches so you can get an idea of the timbre):

Here's a visual representation of a sine wave:

So this is what I imagine it sounds like when Dalinar opens a perpendicularity, or when singers hear pure notes in highstorms. And because the sound of a sine wave is so unnatural, it would really stand out and feel otherworldly on a planet that doesn't have modern technology - and I feel like that fits the description.

We also know that it's possible to use tuning forks to play the three pure tones of roshar and pull the matching types of light out of gemstones. While acoustic instruments can't produce a truly pure note (aka a sine audio wave), tuning forks come pretty close. They initially produce high overtones, but those fade out quickly, and then the forks keep resonating with a pure tone. It makes sense that tuning forks are the closest Rosharan humans can get to synthesizing a sine wave!

There's also the fact that Raboniel can sing the pure notes and get the lights to respond, while Navani can't. Is it just because Raboniel's pitch is more accurate, or do singers have an physiological ability to produce notes with less overtones? This is really interesting to me...

And one more fun thing to consider. You know what other instrument comes pretty close to producing a pure tone? The flute! Hoid gave Kaladin a flute... idk if it actually has any reasoning behind it but I really hope it does 😂 imagine how cool it will be if it will be used for musical magic system stuff

[miss-madithe-baddie]

Hooting and hollering over Navani Kholin rn

[duckngk]

drawing the doomed yuri again

[jochi-the-veristithaylen-baker]

Kelsier: *solves everything by killing noblemen*

Everyone on Scadrial: If only Kelsier was here, he'd have a great way to solve this problem.

Every nobleman on Roshar when they meet an assassin: I bet Kelsier planned this, it feels like something he'd do.

[taravangians-storming-balls]

still cant believe brandon gave kaladin a time skip, entirely off screen girlfriend to try and beat the gay allegations

[dealunart]

!SPOILER ALERT! for Stormlight Archive (anything past Way of Kings but mostly for Rhythm of War)

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More Stormlight RPG art that I did last year! This time showing Kaladin at each stage of his ideals. AD: Johnny O'Neal

[lamaery]

8 - Design // SPOILERS for Rhythm of War and Yumi

Well, well, well … since I do have some lineart for the scene in which we are properly introduced to Design lying around on my shelved-project-shelf, I took the opportunity to try colour some bits of it. That cryptic is such a delight. I am sure she would have been brilliant at annoying Elhokar as well. But I guess Hoid kind of deserves her, too. 

[stew4]

Sanderson wrote an interesting and complex romantic tragedy between two women on opposite sides of a war learning to cooperate and appreciate each others talents via science and discovery, by accident

[bug-the-chicken-nug]

imagine being any high-ranking person who's NOT Alethi and hearing Navani is a Bondsmith too AND had like literally a dozen different breakthroughs while imprisoned for Just A Few Weeks AND one of them would essentially let you build a magical antimatter bomb if you wanted to

like. go off, it was Cool As Hell, but Man.

MAN.

If I were in this situation that would be terrifying in its own right

like haha Navani you're sooo cool... haha... y-you promise that once the war ends you're not gonna use your conjunction of genius and the ability to shit ungodly amounts of Light on command to make Alethkar, known bloodthirsty empire, like 300 years more advanced than everyone else and the main distributor of Towerlight, an invaluable new resource which if it wanted it could seize supply of in an inescapable steel grasp, riiiight?

Haha.

Riiiiight?

Navani?

You wouldn't do that. :)))))). C'maaahn. It's our birthday. We're your little birthday allies :))).

Haha you wouldn't use us to save Alethkar and then turn around and make your country an uncontested terrifying superpower that's even more terrifying than before because now it also has gained the experience needed to be able to not only act like, but likely often *truly believe* it's the good guy and that "everything's different now" and guilt/sweet talk everyone into compliance with new trade deals and stories of how cool and awesome and helpful the Alethi were when everyone almost died.... :))))

Riiiight?????

[azure-sorceress]

The argument that Moash was the only one in Bridge Four that didn't see Kaladin as some kind of deity or hero really falls apart once you get to the Bridge Four POV chapters in Oathbringer. They're like "yeah, Kaladin is great, but sometimes he can be an idiot, you know" and things of the sort.

Meanwhile, in Oathbringer and Rhythm of War Moash's POVs actually show that he paints Kaladin as this perfect man and soldier.