#very clearly Gavilar apologism

[sedgewicke]

Well. Reading the prologue to the fifth book sure is... A Thing when you've only read the first. Half of it doesn't even count as spoilers to me, it's pure word salad.

My main takeaway is that Sadeas would be fucking pissed if he knew Gavilar was keeping aaaaaaaaaallllllll thaaaaaat from him. And Merida is in on it? MERIDA!? No idea what he'd make of the secrets themselves, it's kind of a lot of a lot.

I am disappointed to know that Sadeas being with Gavilar that night meant nothing more than him hustling up like "Here, take my armor, I'm gonna go probably trying to save your life I hope you haven't been keeping any absurdly massive secrets from me bye!"

Not that I expected it to be revealed that they were banging on top of everybody's coats, but it's nice to have some empty spaces for the imagination to roll around in.

So, what's the deal with telling Dalinar not to drink (albeit in a weird, cryptic way), and then telling his guy to make sure he gets something to drink? Is it to test Dalinar's will? Is it just to fuck with him? Is it to redirect blame from Dalinar for choosing to get drunk that night and put it back on Gavilar? Because that would be on-Brando. (See: Dalinar having the gall to blame Sadeas for not doing enough, and this not being treated as an absolutely wretched thing to say.) As someone who's lived with an alcoholic for 15+ years: Fuck that. I ain't got that kind of patience for winos no more.

Everybody's pissed at Gavilar for how he treated Navani, but to be brutally honest? I don't care. You married a war criminal. What do you want? No, what I'm pissed about is how he must've treated Elhokar if that's what he thinks about him. No wonder that boy's got so many problems. I sure am glad Elhokar got to prove his dad wrong by becoming a Radiant and helping to save the wor--ohhhh. Yeeeaahhh. Fuck you, Sanderson.

EDIT: Because I should've known better than to not include a disclaimer re: my opinions on this fictional character's fictional life situation. I would have been sympathetic towards Navani, despite the fact that she made a blatantly terrible decision... but then ch 75 of TWoK happened and she pulled some real Scumbag Mom Tactics--and unlike Gavilar's Scumbag Dad Tactics, it's treated as NBD, nothing to see here--and so now? I don't care. And if you tell me I need to care? I will care less. Signed, a real life victim of emotional abuse--not that that matters, apparently.

I hope it's explained somewhere, at some point, how Gavilar got into any of this. Did he just up and start having visions like Dalinar, and one thing led to another? I don't know shit about any of these non-human entities pullin' strings and whatnot yet, but I feel like they probably have some stuff to answer for. They gotta know that humans do not do well with having mystical nonsense foisted upon them like that.

What's up with mentioning Aesudan like she's an old chum. We're talking Elhokar's wife, right? How old is she, that she'd be pallin' around with Gav and the Sadeases? Is she like Aesudan Jr. or something?

His family. In that moment, Gavilar saw his legacy crumbling. He was dying. Storms. He was dying. What was le to him? What did anything matter if he was dying. He couldn’t. He couldn’t... He was supposed to be eternal...

ngl, this got to me. Sure, he was a dumb bitch getting up to all kinds of dumb bitch shit, but I dunno, man, something about dying thoughts does stuff to me. Look, I hurt inside when I think about... Roshone's? shitty kid's death, and I don't even remember his name. No one can predict what'll get to me and what won't (probably what's not supposed to and what is, respectively), not even me.

I liked that there were little bips of humanity tucked in between all the red conspiracy string. Like "When was the last time I hung out with my friends? NO TIME! GODHOOD NOW! I think I used to like my wife? NO! RENEW THE APOCALYPSE TO SAVE THE WORLD OR SOMETHING!"

[radiantmists]

row part one thoughts

So I’m done with part one! this got super freaking long, so readmore:

Navani focus! I am so very happy about this, y’all have no idea. And given that the fused are going to strike at the tower, specifically to mess with the very fabrial Navani wants to fix, she’s going to do something amazing. 

Also, I don’t have to worry about her living to the end, or the tower being lost, because the epigraphs for part one seem very likely to take place after the events of the book.

I do have to worry about Kaladin, especially because I really don’t think spending more time around Lirin is actually going to help his mental state. 

That being said, I did enjoy the evidence that he was excited about his parents moving in-- the idea of him and Syl picking out toys for Oroden is so sweet. I’m excited to see him spending time with Oroden and his mom.

I’m less excited that Shallan and Adolin are leaving without him; I get why sending him on the honorspren expedition is a bad idea, but it seems like the parts of his support system that are adapted to his current situation, as opposed to his parents who are used to him as a child, have been systematically stripped away (Rock leaving, Windrunners deployed in Azir, etc).

I continue to be super interested in what Brandon’s doing with Rlain-- he still hasn’t been able to draw in Stormlight, and he refuses to bond with a spren who’s been coerced. I hope he ends up with a spren anyway; we know it’s possible from Venli, so the honorspren just have to stop being assholes.

I initially thought that Kaladin only ordered the grouchy honorspren to consider Rlain, not to bond him, and I kinda agree that he shouldn’t be allowed to threaten a spren into bonding someone; he knows how much they hate being trapped.

Which brings me back to Navani being threatened. Who could have had the chance to smuggle the spanreed ruby into her box? My immediate prediction would be the Mink, who goes missing with incredible ease, but we really don’t know enough about him at this point to guess. 

Second question, what ‘new fabrials’ does she need to stop making? It has to be a big deal, something she’s known for; it has to be conceivably causing suffering to someone. I do wonder if maybe it’s just the ones with spren trapped in the physical realm, instead of Cognitive, but Navani definitely didn’t invent this procedure-- why would they be holding her responsible?

Another possibility is that whatever Gavilar was doing has been pinned on her, which would make sense-- she’s known to be an artifabrian, whereas almost no one really knew what he was doing.

Almost no one-- Nale and another male herald (who I think by elimination has to be Kalak?) probably know the most. Nalan probably wont be helpful, though he’s promised to come teach Szeth Division at some point.

(Also, it’s hilarious that we all were wondering what relations were going to be like between Szeth and everyone else, and they just put him in jail. Navani’s encounter with him was wonderfully chilling, and true to the way he’s depicted in books 1 and 2. We like his antics with Nightblood, but he’s very much not stable and his reasons for switching sides don’t make any goddamn sense, tbh.)

On the other hand, we do have two heralds who are giving as much information as they’re capable of! Which doesn’t seem to be much, given that Taln is incoherent and Ash apparently doesn’t know anything. But still, it seems like several of our fonts of ancient wisdom have become very forthcoming, which is. So exciting. 

Wit’s only talking to Jasnah who also likes keeping secrets so who knows if we’ll actually get to hear any. Navani’s perspective on him is interesting, and I wonder why no one seems to have told her how clear he’s made it that he is actually something ancient-- Dalinar, Shallan, and Kaladin all seem to know. 

I also wonder who (if anyone) knows he’s a Lightweaver now. I continue to worry about what Hoid is planning on doing with all the forms of Investiture he’s collecting, but we didn’t get much info on him here.

Except Vasher seems to know a fair bit about him! Vasher wins the award for most useful worldhopper in this part. Like, guys, he explained the Returned. He didn’t even just explain it in a way that was confusing in-world but made sense to readers-- he explained it in a way that Kaladin, who knows very little about the wider cosmere, could understand. 

I do appreciate that it’s made clear that he figured out this stuff himself, and that his understanding could be (and has been) flawed. Still, we now have a workman’s understanding of basically all forms of immortality and resurrection thanks to him, which is fucking amazing, yall.

The other big sharer of this part: Mraize. We finally get some insight into one thing the Ghostbloods want-- a way to transfer Stormlight off-world. We’ve long known that the Ghostbloods were among the most organized worldhopping powers active in Stormlight-- for all we know the 17th shard is still hanging out in the purelake-- but this gives them an interesting context. They’re vaguely opposed to Odium but they don’t seem to care all that much, as long as their goals for power and/or economic fulfillment work out. Beyond that things aren’t clear. Yet

Which brings us to Shallan!

If she fucks this up and doesnt get the answers Mraize promised I will scream.

She’s become fairly stable, and also remarkably open about her alters. I think it’s kind of interesting that Kaladin is in the know but her brothers aren’t-- no matter how much she loves and cares for them, their lives are pretty clearly separate.

I’m pretty annoyed that she hasn’t told Adolin about the Ghostbloods, honestly; she really wouldnt have to explain much of her past to explain that she’s investigating them, and I really don’t think Adolin would take it badly. I mean, I don’t think Adolin would take any of Shallan’s past too badly, but I imagine her infiltrating a secret society wouldn’t even register for him.

I’m curious to see how the trip to see the honorspren is going to develop them and their relationship; Kaladin’s not going, so the love triangle is probably going to continue not to be an issue despite Adolin expressing worry about Veil straying, which, thank fuck for that.

Adolin rebelling against Dalinar is great-- I love how Kaladin notes that Adolin isn’t following the codes with religiousness anymore, but he’s ‘found his own balance.’ I’m a bit concerned that Brandon is going to write this as a problem, instead of something fair and natural; while I do think Adolin does have to come to terms with things a bit, he needed to stop hero-worshipping Dalinar and it’s good that it happened.

He’s clearly excited to go to Shadesmar so that he can talk to Maya more, so that will be a big part of things, which will be nice. I do wonder what exactly Shallan will be doing during the travel-y parts of this, though I imagine negotiating Shadesmar won’t be simple even if it won’t be as chaotic as last time.

(It is vaguely hilarious to me that they’re sending the couple who are bonded to a cryptic and a deadeye to meet with the honorspren and apologize for the Recreance. How could this possibly go wrong.)

I’m not super sure what to say about Venli’s plotline? It’s super interesting, I love the complex political hierarchy of the Fused and the way Leshwi deliberately is lower in status bc the position gives her more latitude. (Though it’s not clear to me how this status is determined.)

I like that Venli isn’t just joining up with the humans; I was excited about the possibility but I guess it would feel cheap. She seems somewhat aware that the Fused won’t just let her get what they want-- and more cognizant than Leshwi that they wont just fade away if the war ends-- but I’m not sure I see how exactly she’s going to go forward from here.

She is going to help the Fused trying to infiltrate the tower. Raboniel is experimenting with spren somehow, and Venli can see into the Cognitive Realm with ease; that should be interesting.

(Sidenote, Raboniel reminds me heavily of Semirhage, and the Pursuer reminds me of Demandred. I can’t imagine Brandon is totally unconscious of the parallels, especially given that these are his “dark one’s” constantly-resurrected leaders, and I think that’s fun)

Leshwi is also worried about humans learning to trap the fused, or perhaps all singers, the way they did the unmade. I am also worried about this, as it seems like a temptingly effective but also horrific solution to the issue of the constant resurrection of the fused. 

The most promising thing about Venli’s storyline is that she might make it easier to reach a resolution to this whole series that doesn’t require the extermination of one side, which I have some faith Brandon wouldn’t do.

(It’s hilarious to me that they just yeeted Nergaoul into the ocean, especially considering that you can see trapped spren in shadesmar somehow, and oceans there are land.)

In any case, Venli is going to collide with the tower squad soon enough, probably by the end of the book, and I’m excited.

I hope this doesn’t end with Rlain defecting away from the humans and to her, though that would be understandable especially given his inability to fully integrate with the Windrunners.

Sundry other things-- I wonder if Navani’s drive to understand will help her deal with Re-Shephir, who to my understanding is still lurking in the depths of the tower somewhere? It’s interesting to me that trapping the unmade doesn’t seem to actually require any radiant powers.

My other theory, which I’d been developing over the course of rereading the last couple parts of Oathbringer, is that the ninth unmade is the Sibling, and that it would have to be reawakened, possibly cleansed somehow, and possibly re-imprisoned in the tower fabrial in order to make it work fully. The ‘resistance’ that Dalinar describes in investing the tower seems to support this, at least to me.

I do wonder which Shard the sibling is aligned with; parallelism would suggest Odium, and this kinda makes sense if she’s something like the unmade, though how this would then allow her to repel void creatures i’m not sure.

(Huh, when did I decide the sibling was a she? I think the stormfather does call her that, although in that case why aren’t they the sister? Hmm...)

What does it mean that Wyndle figured out chairs? I’m genuinely fascinated.

Jasnah’s abolishing slavery!! This does more to endear her to me than literally anything she’s done in the past few books. I do anticipate a significant fight over this, especially since a throwaway line in Shallan’s first scene suggests that freeing the singers has actually caused a huge spike in the slave trade, as was predicted a couple books ago. I can’t wait for Kaladin to hear about it.

The Kholin’s don’t trust Taravangian; I’m a bit unclear as to how much the rest of the coalition actually knows about what he did, though my understanding is that it’s a nonzero amount. I’m actually a bit disappointed that he’s reached an agreement with Odium, as now rather than jockeying for the best position he’s just straight-up following instructions and trying to get Odium to win. He’s not trying to save as much of the world as possible anymore; all he can save now is Kharbranth.

I do wonder how he’s concealing his compassionate days now that everyone knows he’s a genius; it’s easy to pretend to be stupid when you’re smart, much harder to do the opposite. Maybe he just says he’s sick.

...That’s probably enough.