#also i love ellista

[brechtian]

I love in cosmere books when scholars talk and it’s like a fun game of how much of your brain is taken up by knowledge of fake things. Level ten is being able to read “one of the earliest emergences of the proto-Thaylo-Vorin glyphic radicals” and not having to reread

[phendorana]

Top 5 favourite Surges (if you could have one).

Top 5 favourite chapters of the Stormlight Archive.

Top 5 favourite interlude characters (excluding the ones who get long interlude ‘novellas’ like Szeth, Eshonai, Venli, Taravangian, and the ones who get short books like Lift and and Rysn).

Sorry if this is too many questions!

hmmm ok here we go. (don’t worry it’s not too many questions). 

top 5 surges:

gravitation (shut up im still riding the high of 10th grade algebra physics)

lightweaving (me escaping the mortifying ordeal of being percieved)

progression/regrowth (solely bc of th iconic renarin vs thunderclast fight)

soulcasting (jasnah oathbringer deus ex machina scene)

division (sparky sparky boom boom time >:)

top 5 favorite chapters (this is just mean ok why would u make me choose):

the last time we march (ob, 37) (rock pov + “dalinar seemed like he could use a good session of making bread” + setting up renarlain we love to see it + “there was an astonishing tenderness to this man” 🥺)

first in the sky (ob, 45) (sigzil being an accounting nerd dockson would be proud)

whitespine uncaged (i’m a simp for adolin’s inner blackthorn 😳 also “honor is dead but ill see what i can do” KING SHIT)

notes (ob, 39) (simply on account of “maybe that should make you reconsider those other wars, rather than using them to justify this one.” HE REALLY SAID THAT)

 a bloody, red sunset (wok, 17) (“you’re in my spot, rock” HOLY SHIT I –)

top 5 favorite interlude characters (this is a good one so thanks):

hesina (she’s my fav + she gets an interlude in row so im technically right)

geranid (the two married ardents. COUPLE GOALS OK)

ym (hes the best person in the whole cosmere fite me)

mem (washerwoman lady who stumbles across ash doing her thing)

ellista (ardent w/ a romance novel. queen. icon. decodes the dawnchant.)

thank you for the asks!

[preservationandruin]

Oathbringer Liveblog, Interludes 1

Our spread here is Puuli, Ellista, and Venli. This will be interesting. Also, I’d just like to specify--any question I ask in these liveblogs is meant to be rhetorical, more me musing than actually looking for an answer. I want to accurately chart the questions I have, but I also want to discover the answers as the book goes, not get the answers handed to me. I realize that might have been confusing. 

I also want to note that I don’t read ahead of these liveblogs, so please don’t tell me anything that happens after the point I’m at. You’re getting my first reactions to everything and I want to keep it that way,  for my own enjoyment and for the posterity of these records. 

With that housekeeping out of the way, onward to the interludes! We talk about some local legends, romance novels show up, we get some interesting linguistic history, Brandon Pokes Fun At The Massive Size Of This Book, and then he chucks my heart down into a chasm where it shatters into a million tiny fragments because of course we can’t have nice things now can we. 

Puuli is a lighthouse keeper, looking forward to the coming highstorm. We get a nice local legend: 

Puuli’s grandfather had been able to remember when those cliffs hadn’t been there. Kelek himself had broken apart the land in the middle of a storm, making a new prime spot for homes. 

Of course, given that the Radiants are real, this could have happened--but it also reminds me of how every colonial-era house is a house George Washington slept in, or all the places King Arthur was supposed to have sat/slept in England. I love local legends like that. My town’s version of one was that Dairy Queen got the idea for the Blizzard from the Blizzards that one of the local ice cream shops, the Chocolate Moose, made. True? Probably not, but does it matter? 

They’re in Natanatan, I think--Puuli is mentioned as having blue skin, thinking that tan skin is strange. Puuli is apparently excited for the storm because of another thing from his grandfather: 

Had the time finally come, that his grandfather had warned of? The time of changes, when the men from the hidden island of the Origin at last came to reclaim Natanatan? 

So that’s an interesting snippet. In any case, he agrees externally with everyone else that the storm was a tragedy, but internally doesn’t really believe it. He named his lighthouse Defiance, and he sacrifices fruit to Kelek for the storm. And one last bit about the men from the Origin: 

They’ll come with Light in their pockets, Grandfather had said. They’ll come to destroy, but you should watch for them anyway. Because they’ll come from the Origin. The sailors lost on an infinite sea. You keep that fire high at night, Puuli. You burn it bright until the day they come.  They’ll arrive when the night is darkest. 

One might say they’ll come during the night of sorrows, something we’re still waiting for a fuller explanation of. It seems like it’s just another name for the Final Desolation, but that’s what it seemed the Everstorm was, too. Also, Light in their pockets seems to imply that they’re Radiants--but Radiants, ideally, are not coming to destroy things. 

Over to Ellista, an ardent. I think I’ve heard this interlude, too--it was another one that a reading was done of. She’s just trying to find somewhere to read, but everyone has to keep arguing about what this new storm means!

And, of course, what she’s reading isn’t a scholarly text but a romance novel. Also, props to Sanderson for taking what is a fairly stock romance-novel scene and giving it enough Rosharisms to be hilarious (not that romance novels aren’t well-written; honestly, good romance novel writers have mastered the art of reworking a genre to make it both new and what readers are looking for and I deeply respect that). And, in the grand tradition of any book you’re reading, Ellista is angrily critiquing the characters’ actions. 

I love that this bit so accurately captures what reading a book is like when the characters are doing something so in-character...but so stupid. So far Ellista has yelled at the main character for turning down a guy, cursed at her, said “damn right you better wait” (basically) at another character,  gets really into the characters about to kiss aaaand--

Gets interrupted by Ardent Urv, another of the Ardents. 

The young Siln ardent was tall, gangly, and obnoxiously loud at times. Except, apparently, when sneaking up on colleagues in the forest.  “What was that you were studying?” he asked. “Important works,” Ellista said, then sat on the book.

Anyway, what she was supposed to be doing was working on the Dawnchant, now that Navani--in the last book--cracked it. She doesn’t believe Navani’s story about how, of course. We get some interesting notes about language: 

-The Dawnchant wasn’t a primarily spoken language, it was a primarily written one that spread across Roshar as a unified scholarly language -A desolation hit, wiping out knowledge of where/how the Dawnchant had spread -People tried to use it to phonetically transcribe their languages; didn’t work well -Glyphs and modern writing developed

So the reason the Dawnchant was lost was because it was mostly written--there were no native speakers. It would be like if the Catholic mass was still said in Latin, then all the priests got wiped out, or something. People would be like how did they forget the words to their own mass but it would be because those words were in a dead language. 

And then Urv notices the book she’s reading, admits he’s read it too (it’s an “Alethi epic,” and I love the possible implication here that the Alethi just are huge suckers for romance novels. I’m not even surprised you cannot tell me that like, Adolin hasn’t gotten emotional over dramatic romance novels. Alethkar is Extra; Romance novels are dramatic. it’s a match made in the tranquiline halls). But...Urv disagrees which guy in the love triangle the main heroine should go with. 

Bugs Bunny voice: of course you realize, this means war. 

“She really should have picked Vadam though. Sterling was a flatterer and a cadger.”  “Sterling is a noble and upright officer!” She narrowed her eyes. “And you are just trying to get a rise out of me, ardent Urv.”  “Maybe.” 

And, of course, he’s got the sequel--with three love interests this time--and offers it to her in return for her help translating the Dawnchant. Also, Brandon is making fun of himself: 

“Sequels always have to be bigger,” he said. 

I’m looking directly at the page count of this book. I’m glaring at it. I see you, Sanderson. I know what your game is. 

And now to Venli, in stormform. We get more of the changed rhythms--the Rhythm of Craving is mentioned here, and the Rhythm of Command. Venli is confirmed to no longer even hear the normal rhythms. She’s descending into a chasm with some of her fellow Voidbringer soldiers. 

There’s a real difference between the Voidbringers--the Fused--and the ordinary Parshmen now returned to autonomy. Every Voidbringer perspective reinforces that. Venli’s spren, which looks like rolilng lightning, is named Ulim, but he takes a humanoid form sometimes, “with odd eyes” and long hair. Venli notes that it’s weird that a spren of Odium would look human--but Odium wasn’t ever really of the Parshendi, was he? He used them, but do we know what Rayse actually was? 

Given that his spren look human, probably human. Although the unmade sure didn’t look human. 

Anyway, Venli is starting to get irritated at having to obey Ulim. It also seems like even Venli--in the moments where Odium and the new rhythms are less present--has doubts and regrets about what she did, how many of the Listeners were lost to summon the Everstorm and how little they’ve gotten in return. 

Anyway, it’s confirmed that Ulim isn’t a spren she’s bonded; instead, “lesser spren” are used for changing forms. 

They...they find Eshonai. And she’s dead. Venli thought that when Ulim said they needed to find her sister, he meant find her alive--but he was only ever looking for the Plate and the Blade. Eshonai probably drowned in the floodwaters. 

Eshonai can’t be dead. She can’t be. 

Well, if anyone would recognize her, it would be Venli. Venli manages--somehow--to go back to one of the old rhythms. The Rhythm of the Lost. And she touches Eshonai’s body. 

Venli stared into Eshonai’s dead eyes. You were the voice of reason, Venli thought. You were the one who argued with me. You...you were supposed to keep me grounded.  What do I do without you? “Well, let’s get that Plate off, kids,” Ulim said. “Show respect!” Venli snapped.  “Respect for what? It’s for the best that this one died.”  “For the best?” Venli said. “For the best?” She stood, confronting the little spren on Demid’s outstretched palm. “That is my sister. She is one of our greatest warriors. An inspiration, and a martyr.” 

And Ulim brushes her off, pointing out that Eshonai never really transformed properly, that she resisted. God, I can’t believe Eshonai’s dead. Ulim and Venli get in a full argument--Ulim calls himself “the one who escaped, the spren of redemption” and reveals that he still blames Eshonai for trying to prevent them from returning--and the Parshendi as a whole for being traitors. And then an alarming line: 

“We must be away and see what your ancestors need us to do.”  “Our ancestors?” Demid said. “What do the dead have to do with this?”  “Everything,” Ulim replied, “seeing as they’re the ones in charge.” 

And it’s noted that the small, cometlike spren is still with Eshonai. Eshonai’s body. 

She can’t be dead. She can’t be. I don’t care that we’ve seen the body. Eshonai can’t be dead. 

I’m going to be in denial for the next 48 hours at least. Eshonai is fine and that’s a convincing body double. Or she learned lightweaving. Or something. Anything.