Hello all, and welcome back to the Wind and Truth reread! This week, we’re discussing chapters 63 and 64, which involve some very quick cuts between different POVs. We’ve got Renarin, Dalinar, Navani, and—surprise!—Shallan witnessing (and taking part in) the Oathpact, while Sigzil and Adolin engage in frenzied battle on their respective fronts; we also check in with Kaladin, whose attempts to help Szeth are having some effect… but not in the ways he’d hoped.
The book has been out long enough that most of you will hopefully have finished, and as such, this series shall now function as a re-read rather than a read-along. That means there will be spoilers for the end of the book (as well as full Cosmere spoilers, so beware if you aren’t caught up on all Cosmere content). We’d also like to issue a content warning, given the discussion of suicide in this section of the novel, which we touch on in Paige and Lyn’s parts of the reread.
Paige’s Commentary: Plot Arcs
Happy Monday, Sanderfans! It’s a whirlwind this week so let’s dive right in! Chapter 63 is titled “One Way Forward” and opens on Renarin, trapped in a vision, not knowing what to say in response to Jezrien’s questions. Of course, this isn’t a new feeling for him, but he hates it—he never knows what to say or do, and he always feels out of place. I don’t face the same struggles as Renarin, but I know this feeling well: wanting to belong but never feeling as if I really do. Wanting to please everyone but, again, never feeling as if I really do. Thinking that I’m not enough, I’m not doing it right or saying it right. I feel those feels, Renarin!
Then Glys speaks to Renarin and tells him what to say, following the script from the original Oathpact meeting and feeding him the correct lines. He likes this feeling of being supplied with the right answers and not having to speak for himself, but Glys is troubled by this, saying there’s no room for individuality or spontaneity. (Those things are hard for people with anxiety, Glys!) When Renarin sees Navani and Gav—who speaks out of turn, not knowing any better—he wonders if the Ghostbloods will say the wrong things or if they’re like him, with a spren whispering into their, umm… brains.
POV SWITCH!
Sigzil is with some Stonewards, fighting the thunderclast Kai-garnis, though I’m not sure how he knows its name. Wait. Her name. How does he know the thunderclast is a she? Anyone want to enlighten me? They manage to put her down, but her body forms a bridge from the other plateau and Fused are able to access Narak 4. They try to hold as it’s only day 5 and they must protect Narak 2 as it holds the Oathgate.
The fighting is fierce and then we get to see some excellent action when a Stoneward called the Stormwall—what a cool name, right?—shows up and unleashes some badassery on the Fused. Then Sigzil takes out a Focused One in spectacular fashion, which rallies the rest of the troops. Leyten relays a message indicating there’s something odd happening on another plateau, so off Sig goes to check.
POV SWITCH!
We spend just a moment with Dalinar in the vision, smoothing over Gav’s odd comments, and we hear a bit of info about Vedel and her people. Dalinar observes that her mannerisms look familiar but then Tanavast shows up and Dalinar knows that the forming of the Oathpact is close. But still no Taln…
POV SWITCH!
Adolin! Woo-hoo! Not that I favor Adolin POVs or anything… ::ahem::
He fairly leaps into his armor ::foreshadowing:: and learns that Kushkam thinks the singers will try to down a Shardbearer today, so he sends thanks for the warning and enters the dome. The enemy begin to back off when he enters the area, giving him confidence, until they suddenly surge forward with a couple dozen Direforms in order to surround Adolin.
He dominates the fight with his Shardhammer but then suddenly hears an oddly familiar voice in his ear telling him that the other Shardbearer is down on the opposite side of the dome. Adolin finds himself flanked so that he can’t go to the rescue of the Azish Shardbearer, so what does he do? Come on… this is Adolin. He charges forward, of course! Right through the center of the enemy bunker where the Oathgate is. Some of his honor guard stay with him and the voice tells him that the Shardbearer is still alive. Then Adolin recognizes the speaker as Notum and realizes that Maya’s excursion was successful. Notun says he’ll explain after. So Adolin continues forward, the son of the Blackthorn, fighting on even after damaging his Shardhammer.
Don’t stop moving.
Don’t let them respond; only let them react. Don’t let them plan, only let them panic. Don’t let them see you as anything other than a terrible force.
Make them avoid you at all costs.
Geez, Adolin can be scary when he’s all Shardplated up and going for the jugular. But he’s got to save the Azish Shardbearer, else the enemy will capture the Plate, leaving Adolin to spend the rest of the battle fighting a singer Shardbearer. He breaks out of the dome on the other side and Notum speeds ahead, circling the place where the Azish Shardbearer, Neziham, has fallen and is still fighting on his back, sweeping at the enemies’ legs with his Blade.
A direform crushes Neziham’s helmet and it’s clear that if it hits him again, it will kill him. Adolin roars, shocking and terrifying the defenders who were definitely not expecting him to show up there. He kills a direform and then, since he doesn’t have his Shardhammer any longer, takes the dead Regal and starts swinging it around like a weapon. As one would expect with such a tactic, he’s eventually left swinging only a leg. Gruesome stuff, Brandon! Loving it!
The enemy breaks, completely demoralized at this turn of events and the brutality of Adolin’s attack. All of them retreat, except for one Heavenly One: Abidi the Monarch, who calls Adolin a Radiant. He thinks he is hiding his powers. No, Monarch, he’s just a badass! Abidi knows who Adolin is, but instead of engaging him, he retreats with the rest of the enemy troops. Adolin, helping Neziham, realizes that one member of his honor guard, the Thaylen, Hmask, is still with him. Love Hmask! Turning to Notum, Adolin tells the spren it’s time to chat.
Chapter 64 is titled “To Hold Back the Darkness” and we open on Navani, who is seen in the form of Wit/Midius in this vision. She’s having a minor freakout because Tanavast has just showed up.
***God had just appeared.***
And so Tanavast and the soon-to-be Heralds begin discussing how they’re going to do what they’re planning to do in forming the Oathpact. Navani is blissful, watching it as it happens though it is nothing close to what she had always imagined it would be like. Ishar begins a bond with them all and Jezrien is the first to swear an oath to Honor, stating that he will hold back the darkness. They each, in turn, swear an oath and Ishar Connects them.
Once eight have sworn, only leaving Ishar to close the circle, and Tanavast turns to Wit (actually Navani), calling him “old friend” and asking him to join them, stating that Wit was the only one who showed an ounce of wisdom on that day. Navani tries to think of something Wit-ty but, in the end, can only reply, “I can’t, I really can’t.” She tells Tanavast to pick another. Nale thinks they need someone who is not a king or scholar and says that he has a recommendation. Aaaanndd…
POV SHIFT!
Grrr…
But it’s Kaladin!
It’s raining and he’s thinking of the story of Fleet as they head toward the next monastery. Szeth is closed off and Kaladin begins to feel his thoughts turn dark before he realizes that this rain is like the Weeping, and that he’d always had a rough time during the Weeping. He thinks of Tien and is able to smile.
Then Szeth speaks up, saying that Kaladin’s suggestions about his thoughts have been helping. And he says thank you! Whaaaat?
Kaladin reminds Szeth that it’s not an easy fix and will take working at it daily. Then Kal says how alike they are, but Szeth disagrees, telling Kaladin that he does his job while Kaladin always questions his. Then… oh, storms, then Szeth says that Kaladin’s words have merit and that perhaps he, Szeth, will take them as law.
Whoa, there. What? Kaladin says he’s not there to get Szeth to follow him, but to convince him to follow his own conscience. And with a perfectly straight face, Szeth says that his conscience tells him not to trust his conscience. Again… what?
Szeth hits us with yet another whammy, telling Kaladin that his lessons have led Szeth to the realization that it’s time for him to die—that at last, he’s capable of the strength required to kill himself.
Kaladin insists that’s not what he’s been teaching Szeth, who responds, “Do you want me to make my own decisions?” Oh, Szeth… you poor, confused soul. I’m glad things don’t turn out as he’s planning now, but it’s so sad to see him invigorated by the thought of dying. Dude needs MUCH more therapy than Kaladin can provide in such a short time. Readers aren’t wrong about that.
Syl shows up and Kaladin asks her if she heard what Szeth said; Kaladin says he thought he was making progress, that perhaps Szeth is too far gone and he should focus on what the Wind wants him to do. Syl reminds him that people didn’t abandon him when he thought he was too far gone. AHA! Oh… that’s a rude awakening, indeed. Because I see myself in Kaladin’s shoes in that people didn’t give up on me when I thought I wasn’t worth the effort of continuing to live. Once again I find myself wanting to just give Kaladin a hug. There, there, child… you’ll be fine. Well, as fine as you can be.
POV SHIFT!
Whew, back to the Oathpact!
We get Renarin’s POV now, rewound a bit to just before the oaths are being spoken. Glys tells him that Shalash said something wrong, so Renarin and Rlain approach her and Renarin meets her eyes. She speaks his name and he realizes that it’s Shallan. As the others begin to speak their oaths, Renarin tells Shallan what to say, then tells her that he suspects that the assassins might be the guards standing at the back of the room.
When the majority of the assembled group leave to ask Taln to join them as Heralds, Renarin suggests that they can linger behind. As everyone heads out, Renarin, Rlain, and Shallan are left with three guards in the tent. As he prepares to join Shallan in moving against the guards, however, Honor attacks him.
Dun-dun-dunnn…
End of chapter! Of course it is—Brandon does love these kinds of bangers at the end of chapters. We’ll be off next week for Memorial Day but will pick up the following Monday to talk about what happens next!
Lyndsey’s Commentary: Character Arcs and Maps
It’s rare for a chapter arch to feature only one Herald, and chapter 63 is one such chapter; we’ve only got Taln in all four spaces. He’s a fitting choice, however, for several reasons. For starters, we actually have a Stoneward who appears in the chapter—Dami, the Stormwall. Taln is also the Herald of war, and both Sig and Adolin’s sections in this chapter involve some pretty intense fighting.
Chapter 64’s back to the more normal two-Herald representation; specifically, Ishar and Nale. I’m going to glean from this without even looking that this is going to be a Szeth/Kaladin-heavy chapter. Let’s see if I’m right… ::turns the page:: Oh… starts with Navani? Interesting! Both Nale and Ishar show up in the Spiritual Realm’s depiction of the forming of the Oathpact, and both in pretty significant roles, so it does make sense. As I continue, however, I see that this chapter does eventually feature Szeth and Kal’s buddy-cop comedy hour, so I was right after all.
Renarin
All his life, Renarin had struggled to figure out what people wanted of him.
It was the great recurring theme of his existence. He’d say the wrong thing, or more commonly not say something everyone expected him to, and the whole room would look at him just as they did now, in that tent full of future Heralds.
Poor Renarin. He just walks to the beat of a different drummer, which isn’t a bad thing necessarily. He needs to find the right music… and thankfully he’s got a love interest who’s very musically inclined, both figuratively and literally!
Renarin was… growing to respect who he was rather than who he thought he should be.
This is a very powerful lesson that not everyone is mature enough to learn. Who we are is an ever-evolving, changing thing based on a million tiny factors; and society/familial expectations absolutely play a part.
He knew he shouldn’t derive his self-worth from being what they expected, but surely there was good in pleasing others?
Not solely from pleasing others, anyway. I think that pleasing others can be a part of our self-worth, but finding your own reasons for admiring yourself is a huge part of growing up.
Dami (the Stormwall)
Finally a fifth man dropped, the one they called the Stormwall. Dami, the Riran Stoneward. Shardplate formed around him—the largest, bulkiest suit Sigzil had ever seen, glowing a dangerous golden orange at its symbol and joints. In that armor, Dami stood a head taller than even the four conventional Shardbearers.
This being the first time we’ve seen this verified badass, it’s worth talking about him a bit. I’m rather sad that we didn’t get to see his backstory, as he’s such a cool character. Maybe we’ll learn more about him in the back five. He strikes me as the type of character who could be a main character in his own right. But in a way, I kind of like that we didn’t get a ton of focus on him. It’s nice to know that there are other interesting, powerful Radiants out there who aren’t in our core cast of characters. It would be a little strange if the entire world was only populated by our main character crew. Showing that there are others broadens the world of Roshar, letting us know that there are other people living out amazing, fascinating lives here that we are only seeing snippets of. (I’m hoping that you dig into those ribbons he’s got tied to his wrist, Drew, because they sure sound a lot like Awakening to me!)
Sigzil
“The Focused Ones!” an Edgedancer shouted, sliding past Sigzil in the rain, trailing fearspren like a train. “They can’t be killed! They can’t be killed!”
Well, that wouldn’t do. Time for some applied science.
I’ve been trying to cut back on my animated gif usage, but this one had to be done.
::ahem:: Back to our regularly scheduled character analysis: I love what this little moment tells us about Sig and his leadership style; he sees his men panicking, and immediately takes action (putting his own life in danger) to strengthen their morale.
Vedel
“We are sad, as Vedel’s entire nation did not make the transition to this land with her. Vedel was visiting us when the … end began.”
“So I left them,” she whispered. “To burn.”
Oh, wow. There’s backstory I hadn’t expected. I wish that I could say that I was hopeful that when we get Taln’s flashback book, we’d get a lot of interesting stuff about the Heralds’ lives on their previous planet… but Taln was born later, on Roshar. I suppose we’ll never get to dig into all the interesting possibilities of the past, unless Brandon decides to write a tie-in or novella about them someday.
Adolin
The shoulder plates seemed to jump into place, as did other pieces, before he pushed his hands into the gauntlets.
Seemed to? Or actually did? Knowing what we know about Adolin and his connection to his Shardplate later on, I’d be willing to bet the latter.
[…] Adolin wasn’t just any Shardbearer. He was, at his core, the Blackthorn’s son. […]
Adolin didn’t like it, and he didn’t have to. He embraced it anyway.
It takes a special kind of man to not only recognize his own flaws, but to find ways to use them to his advantage. But then, we already knew how special Adolin is.
As the corpse sagged in his hands, Adolin took it by one leg and began swinging.
Okay I know I said I was cutting back on gifs but…
Abidi the Monarch
[…] Did you know that the blood of Radiants quiets the voices in my mind, and takes away the edge of a thousand years of pain? If I bathe in it, they simmer, then slip away.
This is some grade-A psychotic insanity right here. This dude’s absolutely lost it. I love completely insane villains, though, so I’m here for this mustache-twirling badass.
Navani
This was… Him. The being she’d worshipped since childhood. The one she’d burned glyphwards to. Dalinar said he was dead, but she’d never been able to accept that, not the way he said it. God could not die. Perhaps an aspect of him could die, an avatar.
I’m going to start off this comment by stating that I’m not an overtly religious person anymore, despite (or perhaps thanks to) my upbringing in a very religious household. That said, I really feel for Navani here. When something that you’ve believed in your entire life, something you’ve worshipped and held to be true for as many years as she has (let’s face it, Navani’s no spring chicken) turns out to be false, it’s a real blow to your worldview. What else is wrong? How can you trust anything, when something as important as God is proven to be false? The answer comes in the next paragraph:
So, she steeled herself. This wasn’t actually God. This was one of his many faces.
A restructuring of her mind, in order to preserve her belief. And she’s not entirely wrong, is she? Tanavast does hold one of the Shards, which is a splinter of Adonalsium. Perhaps her belief can be salvaged.
I also continually love that Navani is a scientist and a religious person. This isn’t something that one sees often in fiction, except in the instances in speculative fiction when science/magic is directly related to the powers that a god grants people.
Nale
“But the powers you gave me… they helped burn the world itself.”
Honor’s expression softened. “I’m sorry. But did I warn you?”
Whoa whoa whoa, hold up. So it was Nale who was responsible for Ashyn’s destruction? Jeez. No wonder the guy’s so messed up.
Szeth
Because of you, Kaladin, I am finally able to recognize—and admit—that it is time for me to die. I’m at last capable of the strength required to kill myself.” […]
“Szeth!” Kaladin shouted. “That isn’t why I’ve been teaching you!”
“Do you want me to make my own decisions?” Szeth called back.
“Yes, but—”
“This is mine, bridgeman!”
Oh, Szeth. I feel so badly for this guy. His whole life has been nothing but one long, frustrating, confusing mess. I don’t blame him for wanting to end it; he’s never seen how good life can be. Not for him, anyway. The last time it seems like he experienced true happiness was before the incident with Molli. When you’ve spent your whole life being lied to, used, manipulated and abused, filled with guilt, suicide must seem like a way out. But that’s only because Szeth hasn’t seen yet that atonement is possible, and that he’s deserving of it. A truly happy life is out there waiting for him—he just can’t see the path through the trees yet.
Kaladin
He’s right—he does deserve to die, doesn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “Does anyone?”
“He’s killed hundreds.”
Under orders. As have we.”
The Nuremberg trials had a little something to say about the “I was just following orders” defense. It’s called “superior orders,” and the ruling was that the defense wasn’t enough to excuse crimes committed, but only to lessen the punishment. As Kaladin says later, soldiers hold some weight of responsibility for their actions. This is a very deep philosophical area that they’re getting into, one which has resulted in inconsistent rulings in war crimes trials throughout history.
In this particular instance, Szeth’s story is even more complicated. In many cases, soldiers sign up to be in the army. They have a choice, and agency. (I say “most” because yes, the draft and mandatory military terms are things, and there are sometimes extenuating circumstances, but for the sake of keeping this somewhat short, let’s focus on the big picture). Szeth, though, was sold into slavery. He was constricted by the societal norms of his society, all he’d ever known, and didn’t believe that he had (or deserved) a choice in his actions. Is he less culpable because of this? Or is it essentially the same, because he could have rejected the entire notion of the Oathstone and just walked away at any time? He was certainly a skilled enough warrior to do just that.
It’s an incredibly complicated ethical dilemma, and I sure wouldn’t care to be on any jury that was attempting to determine his fate.
“Part of me feels like he’s a lost cause, Syl. He doesn’t want my help. […] Szeth is too far gone.”
“People didn’t leave you alone when you thought you were too far gone.”
::cough:: Adolin ::cough::
Map
Why are we heading to the Elsecaller monastery?
Battle Tactics
The Shattered Plains
In this week’s attack on Narak, a thunderclast last takes down the wall on Narak Four and the enemy forces are simultaneously attacking Narak Prime. I’m giving you my best guesses as to where these are happening, based on the fact that another plateau is fairly close to those two plateaus and would provide a convenient staging point for both prongs of the attack.
Azir
“Um, the commandant has a note for you here. It says, ‘Cast the Banner?’ With a question mark?”
“Ah…” Adolin said. Towers maneuver. Kushkam thought from the enemy positioning that they’d try extra hard to bring down a Shardbearer today—which made sense. The enemy had largely stopped trying since their attempt on the first day. Perhaps they’d been waiting for the defenders to grow lax, and overcommit their Shards?
I don’t know exactly why I fancy the Towers maneuvers so much, but I do. I love it every time one gets brought up. I do wonder if Brandon’s got an actual game in the works… I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if that were the case.
So here’s where the battle at Azimir stands currently. The Fused/Singers have built a fortification in the middle over the actual portal, a dome to provide cover against the arrows and dropped stones. A dome within a dome, if you will. (It’s domes all the way down.) They’ve extended their land holding and pushed the Azish forces back, but the Azish are still standing, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Adolin and the other Shardbearer, who are shoring up the weak points in the lines.
One shield wall, three lines of pikes, two resting while the two at the front fought. Ten minutes at the front, ten on the pikes behind, followed by twenty minutes of rest.
A very smart setup. One which allows the defenders to maintain their men’s strength by continuously giving them breaks. Unfortunately, they’re up against some steep odds.
“The Azish Shardbearer. They sent twice as many against him—and they have shields with aluminum bands to stop the Blade.”
Where are they getting all this aluminum?!
“I worry that battlefields are changing on us, Brightlord. Pike blocks aren’t working like they used to—they break too easily before these new kinds of troops. The old ways are dying. That worries me. All our training is in those methods.”
This is particularly interesting to me, looking through the lens of real-world battle history. We see this happen multiple times throughout our history; for just a few examples, the shifts from stone weaponry to steel, then swords and armor to guns, then guns to drones and missiles. Armies throughout time have been forced to adapt and change to the evolving science of weaponry, but what makes Roshar particularly interesting is that the army is having to adapt to the magical powers of their enemy. It makes sense, if you think about it. Magic, in a way, is the science of this world (especially once you take fabrials into account). And as Clarke’s law tells us, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Ashyn
“There was nothing you could do once the chain reaction set the air ablaze.”
I’m stepping a bit out of my wheelhouse here, because whenever they talk about this particular event, it makes me wonder if this was some sort of atomic explosion. I recall that when Oppenheimer was still researching the possibility of the atomic bomb, this “atmosphere catching fire” was a possibility and a very real fear. Perhaps Ashyn’s atmosphere was of a different composition from Earth’s? I got curious and did a little research on this subject, and came across this interesting article:
Theoretically, rapid local heating of the air when the bomb exploded could initiate fusion—the opposite of fission—reactions in the atmosphere if the cooling of the air through the release of radiation did not overcompensate. The fusion of hydrogen nuclei is responsible for sustaining stars. […] According to a report written by Los Alamos researchers in 1946, “It is impossible to reach such temperatures unless fission bombs or thermonuclear bombs are used which greatly exceeds the bombs now under consideration.” […] “The limits were luckily never tested, but in general, I would say, the density of the atmosphere is too low,” Wiescher responded when asked whether a powerful enough bomb to burn the Earth’s atmosphere could ever be built. “If one would substantially increase the atmospheric density to Venus values—100 times denser than Earth—one would still not have the density of water, and the underwater test program did not ignite the oceans, as some people predicted,” he elaborated.
Now, I’m certainly not a physicist (I majored in English literature, for storm’s sake) so I can’t speak about this with any degree of authority, but perhaps someone in the comments with experience in the relevant field could weigh in? Could Ashyn’s atmosphere be considerably more dense than Roshar (and Earth)’s? Or is there another type of chain reaction at play here, other than something on a subatomic level?
Drew’s Commentary: Invested Arts & Theories
You need not always have the last word, though I know you collect them like badges of honor. I will not tell you where she is.
All I will say is that I have kept my bargain, and I did not go in person at her request for aid.
Sure, standard Endowment taking shots at Hoid’s personality, but the second epigraph this week is extraordinarily noteworthy. Valor, the mighty dragon-god Vessel steering what is nominally one of the most capable-sounding Shards, needed help? And Endowment offered it, but not in person?
Has Vasher perhaps spent time elsewhere in the Cosmere, before settling on Roshar? Has Vivenna been chasing him for longer than we think?
Now I’m off, imagining possible adventures with the two of them and Nightblood, starting with whatever they do with Yesteel in the as-yet-unwritten Nightblood and ultimately concluding with their arrival on Roshar…
But if it isn’t Vasher, it seems like it must have been another Returned (or many). I can’t imagine how else Endowment would move her pieces on the Shardic chess board, at least given the information we currently have regarding Nalthis.
(This is your regularly scheduled plea for Brandon to write that dang Nalthian System Essay.)
Colorful ribbons—tied around his wrists and extending out through the Plate—began moving of their own accord; they spiraled outward around his fist and became like blades themselves, after the Stoneward art.
Like Lyn mentioned above, this is a pretty provocative image. We’ve had enough Awakening now in The Stormlight Archive that most readers will start picking up on ribbons and clothing moving of (seemingly) their own accord. Chapter 15 in Rhythm of War is the most notable, with Kaladin dueling against Zahel, but even in Wind and Truth we’ve seen Felt use Awakening to confront Kalak.
But I actually don’t think this is Awakening, for a couple of reasons. The first is that we’ve been given no indication before this that Dami would be either a worldhopper or particularly attached to Zahel (or the Ghostbloods). It feels, to me at least, that Brandon would have laid a little more groundwork before dropping a Fourth Ideal Radiant with Awakening on us.
But the second, more important reason, is the words “after the Stoneward art.” Stonewards can manipulate the Surges of Cohesion and Tension, which allow them to alter the shape, fluidity, and stiffness of matter. Turning ribbons into hardened blades actually feels pretty much right in line with this.
We’ve seen a few different examples of multiple Invested Arts producing similar if not identical magical results: Hoid’s Yolish Lightweaving vs. Rosharan Lightweaving, for example, or Elantrian Elsecalling vs. Rosharan Elsecalling. This appears to be just another example of the phenomenon.
“You are a healer, Vedel, not a Firesmith,” Jezrien said, walking across the tent to comfort her.
Not really much to say here beyond noting yet another tantalizing hint at what Surgebinding was like on Ashyn. “Firesmith” is an incredibly Brandon name (he really does like taking two nouns and smashing them together into something badass), and it carries a whole lot of implied weight, given the fate of Ashyn.
“[Odium] granted you his powers. There is a Connection we can exploit, so long as the circle contains enough of you. Strongest would be sixteen or my own number of ten—it cannot be nine. If you speak oaths to me, my power can be channeled and governed by rules to prevent a cataclysm. I will take back your Surges, then grant them anew, and together you will become a force that both protects Roshar and binds the enemy away from it.
We finally get some more details about the mechanics of the Oathpact in chapter 64, and I’m grateful for it. I find it fascinating that Honor actually recommended sixteen as the number—another point toward the power of numerology in the Cosmere—before they settled on ten. And in the (revised) immortal words of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, nine is right out.
It probably shouldn’t be surprising that Hoid was offered a role as a Herald, though it did catch me off-guard the first time through. I wish we knew what his actual answer was, since I imagine he’d have had thoughts about what they’re all doing.
Either way, he obviously would have declined. There’s no way Hoid was going to let himself get tied down like that, grudge against Rayse or no grudge. He’s got too much to do elsewhere.
That’s all for this week, though! What are your thoughts on Endowment and Valor? Do you think Vasher has been off helping Endowment by being her proxy in Shardic dealings?
We’ll be keeping an eye on the comment sections of posts about this article on various social media platforms and may include some of your comments/speculation (with attribution) on future weeks’ articles! Keep the conversation going, and PLEASE remember to spoiler-tag your comments on social media to help preserve the surprise for those who haven’t read the book yet.
As noted, next week is Memorial Day so we’re taking a break, but we’ll see you in two weeks for our discussion of chapters 65 and 66!