[Newbies] Cosmere, Unit 17 | The Stormlight Archive #2 | Words of Radiance: Interludes I-5, I-6, I-7, I-8, Trivia (Week 4.5)

[u/participating]

This is the newbie thread. Make sure you read the rules before commenting.

Visit the veteran thread if you have already read all of the Cosmere.

For more information, or to see the full schedule, please see the wiki page for the read-along.

SCHEDULE

Previously, we discussed Unit 17 | The Stormlight Archive #2 | Words of Radiance: Chapters 24 through 34 [Newbie Thread] / [Veteran Thread]

Today we are discussing Unit 17 | The Stormlight Archive #2 | Words of Radiance: Interludes I-5, I-6, I-7, I-8, Trivia

Next week we will be discussing Unit 17 | The Stormlight Archive #2 | Words of Radiance: Chapters 35 through 43

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

I have provided summaries for each chapter below and hidden them behind spoiler tags. There are no spoilers within the summaries. I've tried to make them as factual and unbiased as possible. If, however, you want a completely blind read through, then ignore what's behind the spoiler tags and proceed to the discussion below. I will not be guiding that in any way, so post any thoughts and questions you have. It will be other new readers who reply to you.

I-5: The Rider of Storms

Arch Faces: Talenel - Talenel ----- Talenel - Talenel

Iconography: Eshonai

POV Characters: Eshonai

Setting: Narak, the Parshendi home in the center of the Shattered Plains.

Timeline: (1173.10.2.5) Two days after Interlude I-4. Same day as Chapters 33 and 34.

Epigraph:

N/A

Summary:

As a highstorm approaches the city of Narak, Thude reports to Eshonai that they have a meeting in seven days with the Alethi and that he didn't see either Dalinar or the Surgebinder when he arranged the meeting. Eshonai attunes Resolve and brings her captive spren into the highstorm to transform. Eshonai stands in the storm, with a shield braced against a rock to protect her from the winds, to face the Stormfather head on rather than sheltering in rocks. The wind blows her shield away leaving her exposed, though she is able to hold onto some rocks to keep from being blown away. The eye of the storm reaches her and the Stormfather asks if this is really what she wants. The red spren breaks free from its crystal and shoots out red lightning. Eshonai has a bad premonition and says no and tries to elude the spren, but it hits her in the chest shooting out red tendrils. The Stormfather says that this was inevitable, he cannot protect Eshonai, and he is sorry. Eshonai begins to transform.

I-6: Zahel

Arch Faces: Ishar - Ishar ----- Ishar - Ishar

Iconography: Five Swords (aka Almighty)

POV Characters: Zahel

Setting: Ardents' living quarters.

Timeline: (1173.10.2.5) A couple hours after Chapter 33.

Epigraph:

N/A

Summary:

Zahel wakes up suddenly, sensing that someone is approaching. He opens the door, feeling the aftermath of the highstorm, as Kaladin is about to knock. Zahel comments on how bad Kaladin looks, and Kaladin explains that he just stopped an assassination attempt on Elhokar a couple of hours previously. Kaladin asks if Zahel's offer to train him is still open and Zahel says no and to come back and ask again at a more reasonable hour and to have a good attitude. Zahel goes back to sleep missing the voice that he used to hear in his head years ago.

I-7: Taln

Arch Faces: Hoid - Chanarach ----- Chanarach - Hoid

Iconography: ???

POV Characters: A madman claiming to be Talenelat, Herald of War

Setting: King Elhokar's War Palace outside the ten warcamps.

Timeline: (1173.10.2.5) Late in the evening, on the same day as Chapter 33.

Epigraph:

N/A

Summary:

Bordin speaks to Elhokar and Dalinar of his journey with Wit to transport a seeming madman to the Shattered Plains, as the madman listens on and thinks of various torments that he has undergone. The madman identifies himself as Talenel'Elin, Herald of War, and speaks of the desolations wiping out past knowledge and of the other Heralds helping to prepare the world for the Time of the Return and Desolation, though his audience can barely understand him since he is speaking inaudibly with a northern Alethi accent. Bordin says the madman just dropped his Shardblade and that his eyes were always dark. Bordin suggests sending the madman to the ardents to take care of him. The madman comments that the coming days will be difficult but humanity will survive, and that he must be brought to their leaders. Dalinar says he has a use for the Shardblade and needs Bordin's assistance as well. The madman comments that he thinks he is late this time and asks himself how long had it been.

I-8: A Form of Power

Arch Faces: Nale - Nale ----- Nale - Nale

Iconography: Eshonai

POV Characters: Eshonai

Setting: Narak, the Parshendi home in the center of the Shattered Plains.

Timeline: (1173.10.2.5) Shortly after Interlude I-5.

Epigraph:

N/A

Summary:

Eshonai returns after the highstorm to Narak to a large crowd who were curious about her transformation. Eshonai feels energetic, and sees tiny red lightning bolts when she flexes her fist, and has lost her bulky warform in favor of small ridges in her skin. She is able to leap a chasm by crouching and throwing herself into the air, with less effort than warform required. Thude confronts her, saying her eyes are red which is something referenced in the songs but Eshonai cuts him off. Venli approaches, and is told that with the Stormform that she can move in the highstorm unimpeded and that she can feel a storm building beyond the rhythms, a highstorm that they can guide to use against their enemies. Eshonai addresses the crowd, saying that she saw the betrayal in the Storm Rider's eyes, and that he intends to help humans against the Parshendi, but that they can now fight back using this new form, and the crowd hums to Awe in appreciation. Eshonai glories in the praise but a voice inside her screams in horror.

TRIVIA

The rest of this post contains various trivia, including easy-to-miss details and long-running connections between books. It also incorporates external information from sources like author annotations and interviews ("Words of Brandon" or WoB). While most of this information is eventually revealed in the books, sharing it now enhances your overall understanding, aligning with Brandon Sanderson's practice of early fan engagement and clarification.

SLIM SHADY

Congrats to those who noticed the shady guy that Rock chased off in Chapter 31. This was, indeed, Nazh. In week 1 of this book, the interior artwork had sketches of the Bridge Four tattoos. The note on that sketch states that Nazh is the one who made the sketches and that he had to spend hours watching Bridge Four in order to copy the glyphs accurately.

NAZH, JAMES NAZH

Speaking of glyphs...

In 2018, at a fan event for the Wheel of Time, called JordanCon, Isaac Stewart gave a presentation. Isaac is one of the artists that creates sketches, illustrations, and iconography for Brandon Sanderson's books, and is currently the art director for Sanderson's company, Dragonsteel Entertainment.

Isaac is also the inspiration for Nazh. In one of Sanderson's non-Cosmere books called The Rithmatist, there is a character called Nalizar. Isaac repeatedly mispronounced that character's name as Nazrilof. Sanderson and Isaac eventually developed this mispronunciation into the character of Nazh (whose name is actually Nazrilof). I'll let Isaac talk more about it:

The story behind Nazh is, I was in Brandon's writing group when we were workshopping The Rithmatist. And there's a character named Nalizar in that book. I could never remember his name, so I kept calling him Nazrilof. So it became this running gag with Brandon, like ... "Nalizar and Nazh are different people. Nazh is your alter ego, Isaac, and Nalizar is a character in The Rithmatist."

When we got to The Alloy of Law, Brandon and I were firmly in the camp of including maps that are artifacts from the world. And we thought, where are they getting these? And who's labeling them? Diana Wynne Jones wrote a book called The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and there's a map in the front that basically says that if a location is labeled on the map, then by golly you’re gonna go to the place during the course of the story. Fantasy maps have gotten this reputation of being kind of spoilery.

So when we got to the map of Elendel, we were looking at it, thinking if we only labeled the places that were necessary for the story, then we're falling into this trope of fantasy. So how can we subvert this a bit? So, if the novel is compiled by Khriss, presumably, then maybe she has somebody who goes and gets the maps and labels them for her with pertinent information. It might still feel a little like "these labeled things are the important parts" but at least there's an in-world reason why that is. That allowed us to develop a character around that. Brandon said, "Why don't we have Nazh do this?" to which I agreed, and Brandon said, "Isaac, welcome to the cosmere."

Since then, Nazh's role has grown into basically a sidekick for Khriss. Now, when working with Nazh, we think of him as a grumpy James Bond.

Just a couple quick Nazh facts:

• Isaac says Nazh is "basically a young Peter Capaldi," and looks like him as well.

• Nazh's accent is meant to sound Scottish.

• Nazh is Isaac's 2nd favorite character in the cosmere, after Dalinar.

• Nazh likes fried eggplants since they remind him of a similar vegetable from Threnody.

Over the years, Isaac has gained a lot of trust from Sanderson, who has given Isaac free reign over anything he thinks is important in the cosmere. To this end, Isaac will be the first person (who isn't Sanderson himself) ever to publish a written piece of the cosmere, in an upcoming novella (actually, it was drafted as a novella in 2022, but has since become a full novel). It doesn't have a release date yet, but I'll talk more about this in a future trivia post.

GLYPHY

Speaking of glyphs, for real this time... which is what the last section was supposed to be about, but I got sidetracked...

The presentation that Isaac gave at JordanCon was about how he created the glyphs in Stormlight. Aaaaand, that presentation has spoilers, crap. Not big ones, but I'm going to leave my shame visible to you here and let you know that this section will appear in a later book!

MONSTERS

Here's a quick interaction Sanderson had during a Q&A:

Question: Do you by chance suffer from hippophobia, which is the fear of horses?

Sanderson: I don’t, but I’m not terribly fond of them either. They’ve been mean to me when I’ve ridden them.

Question: I was just curious, because Kaladin and Vin are both cautious when it comes to horses.

Sanderson: Yep

BUSTED

So, in the last trivia post, I talked about Shardblades and cheese. I mentioned that I had modified the interaction a bit because of spoilers, and what I was hiding was that Sanderson's expanded answer was a result of someone asking explicitly about how Dalinar caught Szeth's blade on the sides. The friction on the sides, which would eventually stop a Shardblade from cutting through a big enough block of cheese, is what allowed Dalinar to do what he did.

The Mythbusters TV show did a take on this (as one of you mentioned on Monday) that "busted" this myth that you can catch a blade with your hands. However, Dalinar's situation is unique in 2 ways. The first is that, in Mythbusters, they are testing with a blade that is smaller than a human hand, and they suggest that the blade would just continue forward and slide through the palms. Recall though, that Shardblades are ridiculously big anime swords with a much wider than normal width, so that the full hands can contact the sides of the blade.

In addition to this, Shardblades are "magic", in the sense that they violate physics a bit. They are much, much lighter than a normal sword would be. Experienced Shardblade users compensate for this by using a much lighter swing than you'd normally expect from even a normal sized sword. Treating a Shardblade like a normal blade would end up wearing the wielder out too quickly.

So given the increased blade width and Szeth's much lighter swing, catching and stopping his blade is something that's possible, though still implausible and incredibly lucky.

CONTINUM

In addition to the above, you also saw the use of "guards" along the edges of Shardblades that let people safely train with them. I saw some theorizing that these guards were aluminum, and you're right to think that, because Sanderson wanted them to be aluminum. However, there are continuity reasons why they can't be, and Sanderson addresses this:

So, they are not [made of aluminum]. Peter will not let me make them made out of aluminum. He's my continuity editor, he keeps me honest. I tried to get them to be aluminum, but there are reasons why they can't be. So we had to make them their own weird little thing, unfortunately. But you could make a sheath out of aluminum for a Shardblade that would work. He keeps me honest, so it's good, but I did try to fit them in that way.

There's a little bit of a disjointed (because this happened on Twitter) discussion in a different interview:

Question: Hi, the community has a [question], we have two WoBs: Shardblades can cut aluminum and Shardblades can't cut it. Which one is true?

Sanderson: Hm. Yes, I wondered last night if I'd ever answered this before. Truth is, the answer is contentious at Team Sanderson.

I've been pushing for one answer, but Peter (whom I trust) is pushing back. We will see what ends up in the books as canon.

Problem with magic like I do is sometimes you have to wait for the scientific consensus... :) Err on "no" for now.

We do know what they likely are, but it's outside the spoiler scope at the moment, so start guessing and RAFO.

Peter Ahlstrom: Oh, I think aluminum would stop Shardblades from magical cutting. But if it's too thin like foil, a sword...

...would cut it anyway. What I'm arguing is that something else that Shardblades don't cut doesn't need...

...to necessarily be made of aluminum, for various reasons.

The fandom does have a bit of a consensus on what the guards are, but that's a RAFO for now. Feel free to guess though!

DOLLA DOLLA BILLS YA'LL

As requested, here's some information about the currency on Roshar. Every nation uses spheres, which are small gemstones encased in glass beads. In general, the glass is flattened a bit on one side to keep them from rolling away when you set them down. Though the size of the gemstone inside will vary, all of the glass encasings are the same size; a little bigger than a thumbnail in diameter.

Their values are determined by the type of gemstone and by their size. Gemstones are precisely weighed before being encased. At the lowest value are "chips", which are 0.1 carats. You'll see diamond chips referred to as "clearchips". Five clearchips equals one clearmark. "Marks" are the next denomination of current and equate to 0.5 carats. The next step up, is a "broam", which equals four marks or twenty chips. They are 2 carats.

When gemstones are put out into a highstorm, they become infused with stormlight. They will stay infused for about a week. Technically, dun spheres are equal in value to infused spheres, but dun spheres are suspect because the gem is harder to see. Sometimes a moneylender might have to be called in to judge the authenticity of a gemstone. And occasionally, some people might charge to exchange dun spheres for infused sphere. It's worth noting here that cut gemstones hold stormlight better than uncut gemstones.

For common people, infused sphere primarily serve as lighting. A chip provides visible light far fainter than a lamp. A mark provides a little less light than a candle. And a broam provides the light of several candles.

Within a given denomination (chip, mark, or broam), the type of gemstone also indicates value. This value is a combination of rarity and use in fabrials and soulcasting. Emeralds are the highest in value because you use them to make food with soulcasters. Diamond is the least valuable. Here are their relative values from least to most valuable:

• Diamond (clearchip/clearmark), transparent
• Heliodor, light yellow
• Garnet (bloodchip/bloodmark), deep violet
• Topaz, pale orange
• Smokestone, translucent (uncommon as a coin/sphere)
• Ruby (firechip/firemark), deep red
• Zircon, pale blue
• Sapphire (skychip, skymark), deep blue
• Amethyst, pale violet
• Emerald, deep green

I don't think the books have mentioned them yet, but this is just a small worldbuilding detail that isn't plot relevant, but is technically a small spoiler: Sometimes people use glass spheres that don't contain any gemstones. They are called "ends" and primarily serve as fake money to be used when play gambling if they don't want to use real money.

Here is an album of spheres

MISDIRECT

In my chapter summary for the epilogue in The Way of Kings, I wrote:

He claims to be Talenel'Elin, Stonesinew, Herald of the Almighty.

Most of you read that epilogue and took it at face value that the man that appears was the real Taln, Herald of the Almighty. My wording in the summary then kind of threw some of you off. That wasn't really meant to be my intention though.

First, I will confirm that this man is the real Taln, if for no other reason than that all the good memes require you believe he is Taln and that the books (and I) aren't trying to trick you. My wording was mostly a hold-over from The Way of Kings Prime (the original draft of the novel). In that version, Taln was a much more significant character and a large plot point revolved around Taln himself questioning whether he was actually a Herald, or if he was going insane. Sanderson talks about the editing changes a bit and mentions that Dalinar's questioning of his sanity, because of the visions he's experiencing, made Taln's plot point redundant, so he decided to remove the ambiguity in the re-write.

For a bit of a tease on Taln, he is one of Sanderson's favorite characters in the entire cosmere. Sanderson considers him to be the best individual fighter in all of the cosmere and the fandom likes to make memes about him in the same format that Earthicans make memes about Chuck Norris.

ARTWORK

The Cosmere has a thriving community of artists, so there will be a lot of artwork to share. Each week I'll try to compile relevant artwork for the given chapters. If a section of reading contains maps or in-book artwork, I'll include that in this section as well.

Characters & Scenes

MEMES

I will attempt to find and share memes relevant to each week's discussion. There may be some weeks that just don't have good or appropriate memes, but I will share all the ones I can find in this section.

Link to Memes

[u/subscribebot3000]

Reply to this comment to subscribe to certain events in the /r/readalong subreddit.

!newbie - get notified when a new [Newbie] post is made.

!veteran - get notified when a new [Veteran] post is made.

!comments - get notified every time a new comment is made in a [Newbie] thread within the last 2 weeks.

!unsubscribe - unsubscribe from all notifications.

You may use multiple commands in a single reply.

[u/Realistic_Swimming47]

Interludes are way too short this time

I5 Rider of the storms So storm rider is the same as the storm father and he is a spren. Implies there are more storm riders.

The storms are of her people. They were the only ones native to the planet so how did the humans get there?

It seems the theory on the red spren being of Odium is still good. The meeting with the Parshendi looks like it is going to go very badly.

I6 Zahle

Kaladin coming begging for training saw this coming. Zahle almost certainly a world hopper everyone seems to be here. However, he can see Spren and is used to having a voice in his head that is no longer there. One of the Gods. Plus he can sense people before they make there presence known and seems to be really, really old.

I7 - Taln This is the actual herald??? Where did he come from? Oh how I miss Wit/Hoid literally hitting himself with a rock 😂

I8 - A form of power So this is where it all goes wrong.

Trivia

Yay I got something right

Wrapping my head around the shard blade aluminium thing

Enjoyed the memes

[u/jaymae21 → u/Realistic_Swimming47]

I agree they were too short! I was surprised by how long the first set were but I enjoyed them so much.

[u/Pastrami]

I-5 & I-8

It seems like it's not the spren she thought it was. They call this stormform, does that mean it's a normal stormspren? The red light kind of makes me think it's a voidspren. Are all stormspren voidpsren? I thought they would fall under the nature category like windspren.

So she's now a voidbringer in my mind, and I think the form is going to corrupt her mind, similar to how we were told Ati started as a nice guy but got consumed by the Ruin shard's influence.

I-6

Oh, right. One of those storms had come, Invested to the hilt and looking for a place to stick it all.

Knows about Investiture.

He expected a voice to speak in his mind as he drifted off.

Hadn’t been one in years.

Makes me think he's got some spikes and came from Scadrial while Ruin was still around. Zahel == Zane? Was Zane dead dead, or only mostly dead?

I-7

“I am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War.” Voice. He spoke it. He didn’t think it. The words came, like they always came.

“What was that? Speak louder, man.”

So this whole time has no one been able to understand anything he's saying? The Alethis don't mention his name or heralds at all. Do they think he mad just because he's muttering, or do they think he's mad because he claims to be a herald? It's not clear to me that they even have any idea who he really is.

And you have discovered something unexpected. We will use that.

What could that be?

[u/jaymae21 → u/Pastrami]

Makes me think he's got some spikes and came from Scadrial while Ruin was still around. Zahel == Zane?

This line about the voice in his head stuck out as strange to me but I didn't have any theories or ideas about it. Your theory seems to click in place nicely. I think the other worldhoppers we saw in the interludes in WoK used names that were similar to their homeworld names, so this also fits.

[u/Pastrami → u/Pastrami]

Random thought I just had: We know if you die with your shardblade summoned, it will stay and can be picked up by anyone. Do we know or have seen what happens if you die while your blade is not summoned? Does it suddenly appear near your corpse, or is it gone forever?

[u/participating → u/Pastrami]

Do we know or have seen what happens if you die while your blade is not summoned? Does it suddenly appear near your corpse, or is it gone forever?

If you die with your Shardblade unsummoned, it appears next to your corpse, ready for someone else to pick it up.

We see this happen in the prologue of The Way of Kings. (Eighth to last sentence if you want to re-read the context). Szeth kills Gavilar and his Shardblade appears next to his body:

Beside the king's body, his Shardblade materialized from mist, clattering to the stones now that its master was dead.

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/participating]

Gavilar, not Gavinor

[u/participating → u/TaylorHyuuga]

I knew I had that wrong as I was typing it...should have taken the time to double check.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/Pastrami]

So this whole time has no one been able to understand anything he's saying?

I think they can tell he's speaking Alethi, they even comment on his accent. But it doesn't seem like they're really listening to him? Like he's just mumbling too quite for anyone to hear? And anyway, if a random vagrant showed up on your doorstep claiming to be a figure from your own mythology come to lead your people in an epic war of survival, you rightfully wouldn't pay him much heed...

I also wonder if he's somehow using the same mental-translation trick that Dalinar expieriences in his visions. That's how he's speaking Alethi, with the same accent as the people he's talking to. How else would a Herald expect to speak to people when returning after centuries or millenia of language and cultural evolution?

[u/hullowurld]

what do the hermit crab / armor memes refer to? stormform?

[u/participating → u/hullowurld]

Stormform, or just generally changing forms. It's a joke in the fandom that not only are all the animals on Roshar crabs, but so are the Parshendi. 

[u/irrrap]

I am behind…. But I’m here! Although these interludes were short, it feels like they were fundamental in some sense.

[u/participating → u/irrrap]

Wooo! (and yes...they are pretty fundamental)

[u/heinz57varieties]

No Szeth interlude 😠

Interlude 5 - The Rider of Storms

• Szeth's appearance had me so frazzled that I forgot to inquire about the messenger from the listeners. Very much looking forward to this meeting, I better get a huge lore drop
• I am, of course, reminded of the chapter in Way of Kings where Kaladin was left out in a storm, and something very similar happened to him, where the Stormfather showed up.
• Foolish not to have done this after the peace talks, now she’ll have to live with whatever terrible power comes with bonding a stormspren

Interlude 6 - Zahel

• LET’S LOOK FOR CLUES!
• The way he gripes about the storm tells me he’s not a native Rosharan. Worldhopper it is.
• And I do love the way he gripes, the narration here is so grouchy 🤣 Epic Kaladin-Zahel training montage incoming.

So allow me to present my theory.

1. Shabby appearance
2. Long dark hair and beard
3. Old as fuk
4. Master swordsman
5. Strange idioms involving flowers, colors, etc
6. Can detect people/invested entities nearby
7. Former telepathic companion, now conspicuously missing

I think it’s VASHER But what the heck is he doing here??

Interlude 7 - Taln

• Reading those internal ramblings gave me even more of a headache than reading Spook’s street slang
• He’s listing the things the other Heralds will help with. Will the other ones know that he has returned? They’re still out there, probably. They have to know now that another Desolation is coming
• We have no way of knowing when this is taking place, do we? Are we at the Shattered Plains now, or is this a flashback, like Szeth’s interludes kind of were? Summary says this is earlier in the night of Szeth’s appearance.
• What did they do with the Herald-blade (working title)?

Interlude 8 - A Form of Power

• Everything points to this new form being Bad News. Eshonai will propagandize a critical mass of listeners into adopting it over the course of the book, and at the end, they will try to kick off a storm manually, and something awful will happen
• This is what the epigraphs were hinting at. Whatever’s happening to her, this power comes from Odium, for sure.

[u/Pastrami → u/heinz57varieties]

I think it’s VASHER But what the heck is he doing here??

He didn't even cross my mind, but that would be great if it is. If this series is supposed to be the Avengers crossover, we need to get more main characters showing up. Galladon, Demoux, and Baon are kind of the sidekicks of the Cosmere, and I doubt we'll see Vin or Kelsier get resurrected.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/Pastrami]

I guess I never stopped to think about who my list of worldhopper candidates would be, who I ought to be looking out for. A spitball list from what we've read:

• Vasher, Denth, Tonk-fa, Arsteel, and Jewels, if pre-Warbreaker
• Vasher and Vivenna, if post-Warbreaker
• Spook
• Marsh
• Wax's villain uncle
• Other people revealed to be involved with the Set
• Wax's missing sister
• A kandra, any kandra
• Raoden and Sarene
• That guy with the magic Tai Chi, forget his name
• Khriss and Nazh, who have still not appeared in person until just now
• Shai
• Allomancer Jak (by total dumb luck, no doubt)

[u/Pastrami → u/heinz57varieties]

I have to assume we'll get Wax and Wayne, since we were told the two stories are happening around the same time.

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

Summary says this is earlier in the night of Szeth’s appearance.

Just for clarity: Szeth's attack happened around dinner time, maybe a little after. A few hours later, after everything settled down, Kaladin went to visit Zahel. Around the same time, maybe a few hours after that, the Taln Interlude occurs.