#seriously though it's like oooo OPAQUE BONE

[ramblingoak]

Trying to be good and not feel like I need multiple versions of the soundtrack on vinyl. It's mostly easy because I do not have the money BUT then I see a pretty color and I have to restrain myself from digging a credit card out...

[nightblink]

Blink Reads Oathbringer - Chapters 31-32, Interludes I-1 to I-3

Short one this time, but it’s the end of Part One and the Interludes, so I can start the next one off directly at Part Two.

Chapter Thirty-One – Demands of the Storm

Finally we get another Kaladin chapter. I've missed you.

No wonder nobody's heard news out of Revolar for a while now.

[laughs] Again thinking like a soldier, Kaladin. Cities usually aren't so organized as warcamps; they grow in a more organic fashion.

(As ever, Kaladin is proud of the newest of his adoptions.)

There's going to have to be a complete social upheaval one way or another. No more Parshmen, maybe eliminate slavery entirely. That's certainly something you can throw your weight behind, Kal. To take part in a war, though…

I love how Syl is hiding between his collar and hair. Those glorious, thick curls are serving a purpose other than just making him pretty, for once.

A Parshman in warform, and with a strong Rhythm! But not with red eyes – warform isn't one of those associated with Voidspren. Whoop, but there is a red-eyed one, and they're calling that kind/form 'the Fused'. Definitely Odium at work here.

Yep, time to make like the wind and fly.

Syl, let him have the gloryspren! Still, Syl getting jealous-protective of Kaladin omg

Kal, she's not a GPS

Hovering above a city as a storm roars in probably isn't the best place to talk to Syl about ethics, but it definitely needed to be said. For all that she's been with him for quite a while now, she still has a rather limited view of the world, and doesn't always understand the chain of cause-and-effect.

“It's about what you see as right and wrong.” “For once, I'd like my moral code to not come with a list of exceptions at the end.” Thank you Sanderson for giving them time to talk about that part of the bond and Oaths, because that's needed to be discussed for a while now.

Thank goodness he saw the people and got down to help them. It was hinting from the start that they were out in the open and vulnerable to the storm.

OOP, ONE OF THE FUSED

Dark stormlight? Dark stormlight? Will that be fueled by normal highstorm Investiture, or only the Everstorm?

Aaaaand they can fly. Of course they can.

...are you seriously going to argue with the Stormfather to stop the storm itself. I- of course you are. The Kholin Extra(TM) has been rubbing off on you, hasn't it.

Well, that didn't work. You being you, though, you're still going to try and save the ones down below.

!!!! Did. Did you just airbend. This must be one of the unique combination feats of Gravitation+Adhesion – unless it's something that can be accomplished via Gravitation alone. Whatever it was, you managed so save people. Not all of them, but some.

“Just listen to the piece of nature incarnate, okay?” Syl you are a delight.

Chapter Thirty-Two – Company

Tea and shock blankets – at least Palona knows what this girl needs right now.

Oooo, so that's where Renarin knew the name from – possibly in combination with Truthwatcher abilities, but it's good to know that Re-Shephir is part of their actual mythology.

Imagining a human eventually getting warped into that is terrifying. If the Unmade were Splinters of Odium, perhaps they once hosted in humans and eventually changed them like the holders of the Shards.

If the rest of the Unmade are creepy body-horror things, then I'd suspect the cremling-guy from Edgedancer, no matter what he said. That was nightmare fuel.

Let everyone shower you with compliments, Shallan, you deserve it. Bravery is in standing up to things that terrify you.

Wait, is that…?

It is.

Jasnah: [waltzes into Urithiru half a year late with Starbucks] What'd I miss.

Jaaaassssssnaaaaaaaah~

End of Part One

Interlude One – Puuli

Excited for the new storm? You mean the Everstorm? Well, to each their own….

[squints] Are you killing all of this lady's husbands? You are the lighthouse-keeper. Then again, sailing on Rosharan seas is a dangerous business. Especially on the stormlands-end of the continent.

Ooo, this must be in the New Natanatan area. But blue skin was an Aimian trait if I remember correctly, and nothings been noted about your shadow

….”hidden island of the Origin”. Say what now. Mythology or forgotten history, I wonder…

'They'll arrive when the night is darkest.' - And they come to destroy. Could be Voidbringers, could be the rest of the Unmade. Either way, I doubt they're allies.

Interlude Two – Ellista

A monastery! Oh man, please give us a scene of Vorin ardents flipping their shit over the return of the Knights Radiant.

Okay, so it's not about the Radiants, but we've got Arguing Ardents. However, they're arguing in a library. She should have knocked them upside the heads for that.

This poor woman cannot get any peace to simply read!

When in doubt, abandon the populated places entirely. Good choice.

….are you reading a bodice-ripper romance. You are. And you're having the time of your life.

This thing is all overblown purple prose and it's amazing. Good to know that Roshar has a flourishing trade in scandalicious romance novels.

Are ardents even supposed to be allowed stuff this raunchy?

“Important works.” Terribly important. Essential to the future of all Roshar, this reading.

[snorts] Opaque politics? My dear Ellista, perhaps that might be true of Navani, and formerly of Gavilar, but the rest of them? Hah.

These translations the ardents are working on could be the key to information later on, now that we know the libraries of Urithiru are ruined (hopefully not beyond repair, but not holding out hope for that).

HE READ THE ROMANCE TOO. AND THE SEQUEL

“has to choose between a strapping naval officer, a Thaylen banker, and the King's Wit.” ….did Hoid write this. Did Hoid write this dirty romance novel just for the sheer glee of it.

“Sequels always have to be bigger.” Taking a potshot at yourself in your own book, Sanderson? At least you have a good sense of humor about it.

Interlude Three – The Rhythm of the Lost

Venli?! Oh I have a bone to pick with you over how you treated Eshonai last book-

Rhythm of Craving? Oh that's not good. Command Rhythm being related to Appreciation… I'm not sure what to think about that, because on one hand it goes towards emotional manipulation, but on the other it's more of the Kholin “show honor to your men and they shall return it” vibe. It's treading a very, very fine line.

New Voidspren, one that looks like “rolling lightning”. Possibly the same type of spren that transforms them into stormform.

Oooo, Venli is not happy about not being the one giving orders. Did you think that because you spearheaded the plan for the Parshendi change to stormform and the summoning of the Everstom that you'd be elevated to a position of greatness?

[winces] You just wanted to save your people. Terrible choices with terrible consequences, but you felt backed into a corner. Decisions or extinction.

Ah, so 'lesser spren' are used for the form-changes, got is. Perhaps not even sentient ones.

Oh. Oh no. That's Eshonai, but the blade is materialized. That can only mean…

Fuck. Fuck. I really, really wanted you to be alive. Fuck. I'm really distraught over this, give me a moment.

….

[flings open second-story window] ESHONAI DESERVED BETTER!

I'm going to have to write an Eshonai+exile!Adolin swordbros AU myself to rectify this goddamn tragedy on some level.

[deep breath] Okay. Okay. Back to the continuation of canon. Eshonai's dead, Odium-spren Ulim just wanted to find her for the Plate, but Venli… Venli's singing a Rhythm of mourning – an old Rhythm.

Shiiiit, no wonder the Parshendi hate people touching their dead. Mutilating the bodies to look for gemhearts? That's fucking sickening.

YEAH, GO VENLI. SNAP BACK AT THAT ASSHOLE

“the spren of redemption” aaahahahahaha bullshit

Wait, can Voidspren – even just spren in general – sense Shardic influence? How else would Ulim know that the Alethi “stink of Honor”? And would he recognise, say, a Scadrian by the feel of Ruin and Preservation permeating them? Or, better question, the influence of a Shard on human-types transplanted from Yolen, as opposed to humans created by Shards in the image of the Yolenese, like Scadrians? (My theory that Rosharan-humans were created rather than transplanted grows.)

[hums] He didn't deny that “your ancestors” were dead, only said they were in charge. It's not a spren in charge then, but some kind of ancient Voidbringer(s) – perhaps not actually alive, but returned (hah) somehow? Or maybe both, if the Voidbringer(s) is/are bonded to a Voidspren.

Oh, Venli

….you're attracting a spren. A true spren. Ohhhhh……