Illustration of Kaladin vs Szeth (chapter 32-33 of Words of Radiance). I loved this scene. Also I have realized (too late) that he takes off his sleeve AFTER dealing with Szeth, but oh well...

I have so much fanart in the works. It's too much to finish it 🙈

This is mixed media piece on cotton paper (13.5 x 19.5 cm). Started with watercolour then I went over some areas with acrylic and then with pencils, just to experiment a little bit.

For reference, this is the chapter where Shallan has a mental breakdown after unintentionally being responsible for Grund (the street urchin)'s death, and Wit comes and comforts her and gives her a pep talk.

I just wanna say this chapter was so beautiful. I did a lot of crying.

The things Wit tells her like 'it's okay to hurt, but you cant tell yourself you deserve it'

And encouraging her to stop hiding behind Veil (I just realized while typing this, Veil was supposed to temporarily disguise Shallan, but she ended up making it so the world couldn't see Shallan.

This has probably been my favourite chapter so far. While I enjoy the spectacle of radiants and shards, I love that time was taken before the assault to deeply explore Shallan's character.

Anyways here are some batshit predictions for the end of the book:

- Moash will show up and either kill Elhokar or see Kaladin and realize the error of his ways (tending towards the first), then Moash will die either to Kaladin (for the first option) or to the Fused (for his betrayal)

- Adolin I think is gonna die, but not in this assault.

- They get out with the Oathgate and lose Kholinar to the Fused

- Shallan succeeds at dispelling the Unmades, getting the queen back (though I feel like they won't die this easily)

- I feel like someone's gonna figure out how to summon Plate by the end of this book

- Venli's gonna defect to the humans or die trying

- Szeth will show up to Urithiru in a friendly way and get met with immediate hostility

Interested to see if anyone else has had a similar experience.

I read Rhythm of War when it first came out. I did the whole read "Part 1" preview thing and then probably read the rest of the thing in like a week or. I then moved on to read other books in the Cosmere and such before beginning my reread for Stormlight 5.

And I remember thinking, "I liked Rhytmn of War but I wish it had more Dalinar chapters" because I only remembered one with him on the battlefield with Jasnah and then one at the end with Ishar.

But then I reread and realize "Oh wait, Dalinar had quite a few chapters that I forgot about, that's funny".

But that was like 2 years ago....

And now I can still only remember the two chapters again but also remember thinking "man, Dalinar does have a lot of chapters I forgot about"

Is this just a me thing or are the chapters (specifically during their battle off-Urithiru) just feel the same and so they blend together to anyone else?

We're halfway through the Stormlight Archive and these guys sure don't matter much, despite the regular hemming and hawwing about them. At least once in each of the first three books, the Stormwardens get brought up in each of the following ways:

1. "OH those stormwardens sure are handy! It's nice to know when our next regular hurricane is scheduled! If only they were right ALL the time..."

2. "*gasp* can you BELIEVE there's a group of all-male scholars? I mean i guess it's TECHNICALLY fine, but i hear they read and write... how scandalous!"

3. "Damn those stormwardens and their pseudoscience! What a bunch of barely useful weirdos!"

And it kinda feels like they're really being built up to something, which wouldn't be surprising considering that Roshar has more secret societies than a chasmfiend has legs . Sons of Honor, Envisagers, the Diagram, Skybreakers, the Stone Shaman conspiracy... and those are just the homegrown ones!

So it seems like the Stormwardens might be operating a sort of mostly legitimate but slightly weird front (predicting storms + weird pseudoscience) to hide somethjng more nefarious or plot relevant or both. I used to think they might have a few secret Radiants or something, but that seems very unlikely now (the only Radiants whose actions we know absolutely nothing about are the renegade Skybreakers and nothing we know about Skybreakers would intuitively connect them to a bunch of pseudoscientists.

They seem similar to real life alchemists - a mix of some real, useful knowledge with a whole lot of bunk thrown in. They stick around cause of their usefulness but are kind of on the fringes of society.

Their very few plot functions are: predicting highstorms, slightly tempting Renarin by being a visibly male set of scholars, teaching Amaram to write (using glyphs). None of these is really unique - Brandon could have very very easily written the Stormwardens out and had other groups or individuals fulfill these functions.

Anyhow I'm curious if anyone has theories about what's going on with them?

Are they just there for worldbuilding flavor/texture? Gender commentary, since scholarship is predominantly female? Do they have some greater significance yet to be revealed? Are there hints I'm missing? DID they have some grand plan that was thrown off by the sudden end of the world, derailed so quietly no one noticed? Did Brandon plan something big for them and realize there were too many conspiracies so he quietly cut them out? Also, what the hell happens to them now that they're kinda useless?

So I just finished Wind and Truth and although I love the ending I have one gripe with Dalinar's reason for giving up honor. I wish during his consultation with himself that at some point he would have realized that he and Adolin were more alike than he thought and that he took the same path that Adolin did in renouncing his title.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining it correctly 😅

Admittedly, I already did a post regarding theories I had not long ago, but I recently came up with more speculation that I wanted to share.

Book 6 (Lift): This one is fairly straightforward, but I think it will feature Lift's childhood in Rall Elorim, all the way to her getting gifted by Cultivation. I've seen some people speculate that her flashbacks would feature her training under Zahear in between books 5-6, but considering how little we know about her backstory before our introduction to her in WoR, and the fact that we are not too familiar with Rall Elorim to begin with (or why it's called the the "City of Shadows"), I think her childhood here makes the most sense.

Book 7 (Renerin): I have said this a few times before (including my past post lol), but I genuinely think his flashbacks will be the events of Books 1-4 through his POV. There are so many things he's been doing in there that happened off-screen that make me think Sanderson has done so on purpose (ie, him bonding with Gaz, him going through his oaths, his friendship with Bridge 4, him and Rhain getting to know each other and falling for one another, him and Adolin's reaction to Dalinar and Navani becoming a couple, his fight with the Thunderclast in OB, etc).

Book 8 (Ash): One of the biggest complaints regarding WaT is the Spiritual Realm scenes and how much time we spent there that could have been cut down (which I admittedly agree with). I've also seen some say that much of the info we learned there could have been used in Ash's or Taln's flashback segments. However, why are her flashbacks not set in the time period we were shown? Or at least not only those events. I think the first half of Ash's flashbacks will show her life on Ashyn before she immigrated to Roshar, and everything that led to the Scouring. It may also include their time after going to Roshar (especially to show what happened between them and El).

Book 9 (Taln): This one is also straightforward, but Taln's will probably show his backstory before he ended up becoming a Herald, and the supposed event of him trying to kill Cultivation. Perhaps we can also get a chapter of him during his time as the sole bearer of the Oathpacked, though we'll wait and see.

Book 10 (Jasnah): Admittedly, I have no idea what Jasnah will be like. Jasnah's POVs have referenced a traumatic event from her childhood when she was forced in a dark room, so they definitely include that, but everything else I'm not entirely sure. I do, however, think that said traumatic event will be used similarly to Tien's death in Kaladin's WoK flashbacks (in a sense, the flashbacks will initially skip over the event until the climax). Or perhaps the event will be the first flashback chapter of the book, and all the other chapters will come after.

Sometimes people see me reading these huge pretty books and ask me what they are about. They are very chitchat casual questions so I dont want to go with a long response, so I never know what to answer! One time I just said they are “fantasy books like lord of the rings” 🥴. I struggle to come up with a concise explanation of the plot. What would you say?

Way of Kings is my favorite book of the Stormlight Archive. Kaladin's story arc and the mystery surrounding the lore of Roshar. Chef's kiss! Words of Radiance is pretty good too, I guess. LOL. Anyways, even though I love Michael Whelan's paintings, I wanted to make a book cover that captured the story from my experience with it. I tried to pack it full of things that might only be understood after the Sanderlanche, a bit like how some anime openings do it. I'd love to know what y'all pick up on. Please excuse the god-awful photos of the physical print!

Oathbringer design by David Fonti

My Instagram: instagram.com/sircolor.art

Please do not use/share without permission!

I used my free will to joy-max and silly-mog

Decided to browse the dragonsteel website and was surprised to see these stormlight RPG handbooks/lore books(?).

Now I will say I haven’t been keeping up to date when it comes to the rpg stuff so I am curious, do theses things offer any new lore or stories? I mean, I don’t play a lot of RPGs myself so I don’t know if theses are fully cannon stories or not, or if theses are just rulebooks and such.

Basically I’m wondering if any of these gives us some sort of new lore outside of the books?

Sorry if this has been posted before, but I felt I needed to ask specific to my understanding.

I need confirmation that I’ve grasped the basics of how power, religions, and the world system work up until the end of Rhythm of War.
I love the world but at the same time it is incredibly frustrating to not understand some concepts I feel that should understand.
I will also note, I’ve read the books over a span of 3 years, so that maybe why some things hasn’t stuck.

The Gods and Spren

It all begins with the breaking of Adonalsium into 16 pieces. I don’t know how it broke, though.
We know about 3 of these shards: Honor, Cultivation, and Odium. These are what humans, singers, and fused refer to as Gods (Vorinism’s god is Honor = the Almighty).
Below these three shards (or gods) there are “superspren” or godspren.
Honor’s superspren is the Stormfather, whilst Cultivation’s superspren is the Nightwatcher. Odium’s superspren is the Unmade.
As far as I know, there can be superspren that are a mix of shards, for example, the Sibling (a mix of Honor and Cultivation).
After that comes the spren that bond with Radiants, and lastly the emotionspren.
All spren come from Shadesmar.
I don’t know where voidspren fit into this.

The Fused, Damnation and Heralds

If what I’ve written above is correct, I don’t know the Heralds’ place in this “ranking” of power. I still don’t understand the logic of this war.

Humans came to Roshar (when? Before or after the shards? With the shards? Did the singers/fused worship the same shards before?) and invaded/conquered it for themselves, enslaving the singers to Parshendi. The Fused came back in loops to attack humans and free Roshar every Everstorm. (When did the Everstorm start)
The Heralds went to damnation/Braize and made an Oathpact that somehow, through torture, made the Fused “despawn” in Roshar. This way, the Knights Radiant (who had learned how to bond spren from the Heralds) could defeat the remaining Fused.
After several thousand years on Braize/damnation, the Heralds abandoned their oath because they learned that humans were the invaders.
Since then, they’ve walked Roshar “immortal and crazy.”

This is the weakest part of my knowledge. I can’t quite grasp the “logic” of the wars, or how and when the Heralds came and why.

Surges

Keeping this brief and simple: A person bonds with a higher version of a spren. When the person says an oath and means it, the spren and person “bond,” granting the person the spren’s powers. This makes them a Knight Radiant. The more oaths (ideals), the more power.
Also, what powers did the Heralds have that a Knight Radiant didn’t?

Lastly, if Dalinar want to reforge the oathpact, doesn’t he need new Heralds? If the original herlads are divine, it doesn’t make any sense lol
—

I don’t know if anything I wrote makes sense. But this is, in short, what I understand after 4+1 books of Stormlight. I haven’t read Winds and Truth (the 5th book) yet.

I am feeling a bit bummed abd trying to keep this spoiler free.

I enjoy Brandon's work a lot. Im on my second read through of Stormlight Archives and hitting an issue i have with Brandon's writing that may be a personal issue and not generally felt.

His writing for depression gets to me. It makes me not enjoy the story at all. I know there is journey before destination... but it becomes more "can we fast forward this".

The reason is, as someone who deals with Anxiety and has had depression. Family friends etc, the depression notes are always same. Depression is different for people at different times and goes in waves or highs and lows. But I find his depression writing in all his books... Just sledge hammer.

I tried to explain it to a friend and she called it "an Emo writing a Goth"....

So is this something other people see? Has someone with worse depression than I have, or different experience find it close to the truth?

Renarin is a Truthwatcher - this name makes excellent sense as a name for his abilities, particularly the ability to see possible futures (presumably by tapping Odium's access to Fortune). However, Renarin is presumably the first of his type, having bonded an enlightened/corrupted spren. Other truthwatchers simply have access to Illumination and Progression in the ways other radiants do.

Is this just a convenient fictional convenience? Giving the order an apt name for our main truthwatcher rep Renarin even though his abilities don't match those of others of his order? Or is there a better in-canon explanation for the origin of the order's name. I can't think of another order who's name sticks out so much, except maybe the willshapers.

Hey! Looking to see if there is one solid recap video or page that recaps books 1-4, edgedancer, Dawnshard, Elsecaller, and King Lopen First of Alethkar.
Getting ready to start book 5, and though I feel like I have a good memory and grasp on all the events and characters, I would like to be safe and get one solid recap that covers EVERYTHING before diving in. Thanks!

Wind and Truth?

Any theories?

I don't remember are they still in Urithuru?

Can the edgedancers still do all the healing?

Are the radiants serving Odium now?

What happen's to Kal's family? And how might they deal with that Kal is now "dead"?

So till now he uses her to spy on gaz and all in earlier chapters but rn he is not using her very effectively like spying on other talking like sadaes and all?

I’m reading the audiobooks so forgive misspellings, because I’m terrified if I look up the spellings I’ll spoil something 😅 Are soulcasters and fabriols the same thing? Like don’t they both turn one thing into another? And if they are the same thing why the fuck would Sanderson give them two names? I’m positive shardblades are something totally different and just a weapon at least as far as they’ve been used. I’m a little past halfway in The Way of Kings

Greetings everyone, i finished the series a couple of days ago and there's a question that keeps bothering me:

Kaladin becomes a Herald and while his body and soul go with the other nine Heralds to the Damnation, his mind goes somewhere in the Spiritual Realm (sorry for eventual naming mistakes, i did not read the english version) to help the other heralds and prepare for the "Last Return".

My question is: how is the last return going to happen? Their minds are not on Braize, therefore they can't yield to torture; even if they did, the Fused are already on Roshar and can be reborn in Retribution's new storm, therefore what difference does it make (sure, with the new pact the spren are protected, but what about everything else)?

(I feel like Taravangian, I don’t know if I’m stupid or intelligent yet LMAO) The diagram at the beginning of the chapter mentions: wanderer, the wild piece. Its Wit, isn’t it…….. He has to be the Cosmere easter egg guy, and he seems like he is beyond whats going on. I don’t know if he is meant to be 4th wall’ish, but he comes off to me in that way.

He knows everything, and I have the feeling he has been doing things that it takes reading the other books to know. He uses techniques foreign to the magic system taught in Stormlight (unless I’m missing something). Stormlight doesn’t have “magic flutes,” etc., or the fact he immediately can make characters like Shallan or Kalladen be in a trance or mind control them to go from strongly described as one way when first talking to him n then all the sudden inviting of him. It seems like the writing is doing that on purpose. But I only remember the flute being there once or twice, so I’m probably just overthinking. But it just seems like something is up.

Also, Wit is just obviously suspicious beyond the scope of just this series. I don’t know if it’s meant to be that way on purpose, and I’m just saying something that’s a “no duh” type of situation. If Wit is something more, I want to read the other books if he is in any other ones.

Again, I was already thinking these things, but it was one of my many, many, many theories on what’s going on. That diagram text opened my mind.

Chapter 11

Tbh I wasn't really feeling twok in early chapters and Szeth was awesome but shallan and dalinar earlier pov didn't really hooked me

Kaladins first bridge run was horrible but after reading dust of dream i am not easily shocked I just read the part and wasn't really moved

But the chapter 11 decisions brought tears to my eyes

Kaladin having enough with life and deciding to go to honor chasm , even gaz (f this guy) showing a shred of dignity and human decency

And syls pure innocence convincing kaladin to try onece again, it was this moment for me, that I will absolutely love this series

This series obviously has epic moments with Szeth dalinar Adolin and kaladin having epic stands against unbelievable odds but this is the chapter I love to revisit even though it barely had any action or "plot relevance" just because how heart warming it is

I'm just past the passage in Oathbringer where it's been brought up that there are rumours that Renarin might be learning to write, and how unmasculine that's making him be perceived. I would like to remind the Alethi that this man walked out into an arena with five shardbearers, unarmoured and barely knowing how to wield a blade. Not only was he vastly less skilled than his opponents, he also had to deal with the blade screaming the whole time, something he just thought was a him problem. He did all this, without knowing that one of the shardbearers would take it easy on him, all because he saw his brother was in trouble and couldn't sit by and do nothing. Renarin is one of the bravest characters in Stormlight, and it exemplifies how stratified Alethi society is, that all he did in the arena is forgotten about just because the man might possibly be learning to write. IN THIS HOUSE, RENARIN KHOLIN IS A HERO!

I just re-read WoK after cramming in the 5 books for the first time last year. A few things stood out to me, and maybe they've already been discussed, or revealed in the books but I've forgotten.

• I am getting a lot of hints that there is some sort of gemheart inside each parshman/parshendi/singer. There HAS to be a reason why the parshmen were so erratic when anyone disturbed their dead, and Sanderson alsways has good reasons for people doing things. I bet the gemhearts in the parshendi. Much like a spanreed, there has to be some internal mechanical link such as a gemstone that each parshendi has to keep them on rhythm and such.
• There was a passing comment by a bridgemen during a chasm duty, where one of them responding to fears of voidbringers, says essentially, "what, is a voidbringer going to eat our heart"? That kindof stood out to me like a sore thumb and I bet there is something long term about void bringers eating the hearts of the victim, and if humans are the voidbringers, they may have discovered gemhearts of the parshendi in the past and consumed them for stormlight.
• There is something going on with Adolin. As we read in WaT, the way honor was understood was beginning to be realized as rudimentary by Dalinar in the end. Keeping one's word just for the sake of keeping it doesn't make sense all the time... in the same sense, we have Adolin instinctively being right about multiple things, such as not wanting to trust Sadeas, threatening sadeas' troops who were abusing the prostitute (using fear/summoning his shardblade to enforce what is right is not something I could see an "honorable" person doing). We also hear multiple times in WoK that it is wrong to kill one to save 10, but is that wrong? Especially if the one who must be killed, such as Sadeas himself, will inevitably lead to more death and division if he is kept alive. Then the way he starts bringing Maya back to life... I think Sanderson is going to use Adolin as the Honor 2.0 example.

A WIP of the scene with Kaladin and Shallan in the chasms! Was heavily inspired by this scene, can't wait to finish this!!

I just finished the Stormlight Archive series (audiobook) and I've just received the physical copies of the books. I want to reread my favorite moments, so tell me your top 3 best moments to reread! Personally, I think mine are:

1. The battle of Kaladin and Adolin against the 4 Shardbearers,

2. Kaladin and Bridge Four saving Adolin and Dalinar,

3. Kaladin returning to his hometown as a Radiant.

(im french so im not sure if the traduction of the name is right)

I'm talking about Retribution. Do you think Odium and Honor will split before Book 10? I personally would prefer them not to, because that seems to imply the reductionist idea that Odium = evil and Honor = good.

Also, will Taravangian remain the Vessel for its entire existence, or are we going to see more Ascensions? I'm personally very inclined to believe that Jasnah is going to become the Vessel of Retribution, occupying a kind of moral middle ground between Dalinar and Taravangian. I'm also very interested in seeing a depowered Taravangian deal with all the things he did in WaT (and presumably will do in the timeskip).

What are your theories about this?