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Chapter 89

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 89 (Voice of Lights) Icons: Kelek and Palah–Learned and Builder for Navani doing science things? Epigraph: Kelek thinks he’d be even more insane/fallen with more memories of his failures across his long life. I can’t really say he’s wrong, but it feels like the memories are incidental to his mindset.  That’s got to be rough for Navani to be out of contact with everyone. Is she still allowed to

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Chapter 88

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 88 (Falling Star) Icons: Three again. Kelek doubled, with Nale and Chach Lightning being the key to catching stormspren...–I’m going to presume that it’s just a strong enough resonance with the nature of storm spren to pull them across, not that the power and mundane energy in lightning is enough to thin the barrier between realms.  It’s pretty badass (are we still correcting that to bad chull?

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Chapter 87

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 87 (Trial by Witness) Icons: Another triple icon set. I’m starting to think I am putting too much stock in this supposed departure from the norm. I’ll keep tracking it to see if anything important shows up, but in all likelihood this was just how Dragonsteel decided to do a more-or-less random set of chapters. Anyway, this time it’s Palah doubled, with Jez and Nan opposed. Epigraph: I suppose that l

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Chapter 86

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 86 (The Song of Mornings) Wow. Watching the near-genocide of her people convinces Venli she made the right decision to incite this war? I am not a fan of this mentality that Ulim is effecting in her. (And I hope he really is to blame, because thinking of that as her native thought process is creepy and disgusting.) Yes, she’s feeling glee when looking at their losses. That is an Odium-influenced pas

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Chapter 85

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 85 (Dabbid) Icons: Chach (obedient/brave) and Vev (healing) makes sense as attributes of Dabbid and his actions in working to heal Kal Epigraph: meh. Nothing to comment on I’m not sure how I feel about Dabbid’s continued mutism being a deliberate choice to hide his mental slowness. It makes a lot of sense for the character and is a great examination of belonging, but it also feels like a retcon

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Chapter 84

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 84 (Scholar) Icons: Another 3-image header, with Palah being repeated, and Jez and Chach each getting a single instance. Am I reading too much into this? Palah being learned matches the title of scholar and the research Navani will be doing. Chach for destruction or bravery, Jez for protection? I’m not sure why this one deserves another departure from the established pattern. Epigraph: Hmmm. Does th

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Navani's Notebook - Part III

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Navani’s Notebook Part III Art here. Okay, first thing to note, before I translate anything, is that this is almost certainly Shallan’s gemstone dagger from Mraize. And yet, this is Navani’s notebook. So how did it get delivered to Navani for study? Were the notes made during the course of this book (presumably in part V when the cast reunites)? Or Is this based on descriptions and sketches from Shallan, or po

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Chapter 83

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 83 (The Games of Men and Singers) Icons: Vev for healing, Kelek for Willshaper shenanigans? Epigraph: It feels like a partial homage to Bilbo’s “butter scraped over too much bread” line, though it could just be coincidence with the similar underlying idea. The name of the tower being Ur came up back in chapter 49, but Venli confirms here that Ur has the same meaning as one would expect from Earth

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Chapter 82

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 82 (Knife) Icons: Back to two heralds, following the usual pattern. Kalak and Nale. Hmm. Epigraph: Why was the previous one so long, and the rest of these relatively short? This one would be impactful if we hadn’t already had the 7000 year figure floated twice in the story recently. Yes, irony and all that, but the important information here is that Gavilar was a member of the Sons of Honor,

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Chapter 81

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 81 (Trapped) Hm. I’m not sure I get Eshonai’s mentality yet. Why would she need to reassure herself that warform wasn’t a prison? Where are we in the timeline? It’s a good opening, but I need some context. I didn’t realize that Rlain was part of Eshonai’s warform circle. Did I just miss it before when he was mentioned, or is this his first appearance in the flashbacks? He and Eshonai share a warines

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Chapter 80

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 80 (The Dog and the Dragon) Title: You mean an axehound? What are you talking about, Wit? Stop making up animals. Icons: As expected, Jester/Fool matches the title. Not sure why Jezrien is there. Epigraph: Yes, Jezrien was trapped in a gemstone. I like that Kalak is critical of the singer’s cleverness in taking 7000 years to figure that out. Kal feeling like the wind hates him because of p

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Chapter 79

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 79 (Open Wound) Bridge Four chapter. Not Teft yet, I’m guessing. Probably the group out on campaign. Epigraph: Now we get an actual substantive excerpt to play with, since we’ve been introduced to Restares who is now confirmed as the author of these epigraphs. Seems a little abrupt to give up the illusion so suddenly. I would have put the Jezrien mention in the previous chapter, perhaps. Regardless,

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Chapter 78

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 78 (The High Judge) Epigraph: At least we know the mysterious person is writing, now. A letter or a journal, or something physical that they are recording themselves. Icons: This may be the first instance in four books so far of a chapter headed by 3 different icons rather than 1, 2, or 4. To my knowledge, if one of the icons was mirrored, the other always would be as well. Nale (judgement/justice)

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Shallan's Sketchbook - Part VIII

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. (Do I even need to be warning about spoilers any more? It's taken me a much longer time to get through this liveblog than I expected, and it's now well past a year post publication. IIRC, though, the big stormlight books have an 18 month spoiler period here on 17S, so I guess I'm still within that cautionary period.  Shallan’s Sketchbook Part VIII (Inkspren) Art here. These inkspren are much more angular

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Chapter 77

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 77 (The Proper Legality) Icons: With a title like that, what would you expect besides double Nale? Woah, we’re already at the feast? I was expecting some other visits to show up in the flashbacks before we got all the way to the fateful night. I guess it’s time to see how involved Venli was and where Szeth’s employment actually came from. Interesting that they’ve noted several times that the ti

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Chapter 76

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 76 (Harmony) Title: It’s tempting to guess at a Scadrial connection, but that is supremely unlikely. If we’re lucky it will be an idea about harmonious blending of the various lights; otherwise it’s about “getting along” with Raboniel. Epigraph: Still no indication of the medium or audience. The speaker is still a cosmere-aware individual who considers themself a has-been. Restares is still a possib

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Chapter 75

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 75 (The Middle Step) Title: I don’t remember if we had a “first step” chapter with Shallan/Adolin before in this book. It’s probably worth going back to look, but I won’t right now. Epigraph: This could still be a letter, but I’m starting to think it might be something that will be said by one of the people we’re trying to meet: Either Ishar speaking to Dalinar, or Restares speaking to Shallan

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Shallan's Sketchbook - Part VII

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Shallan’s Sketchbook Part VII (Peakspren) Art here. Peakspren have clear ties to the Unkalaki (as expected). It’s interesting that their appearance draws from the full range of stone textures and colors. I wouldn’t have expected that degree of variety. I wonder how much it varies within single individuals, as opposed to across the population. I.e. does a single peakspren have limbs of different textures an

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Chapter 74

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 74 (A Symbol) Epigraph: Is this another letter? Is this Jaxlim’s sad goodbye given over the course of years? I don’t know yet. Venli considers attuning a rhythm of an emotion she doesn’t feel a lie not to others or to herself but to Roshar. I want a cryptic’s take on this. What kind of rumors are circulating about you two? Is it about loyalty issues? Sanity? Or (my first thought) shipping? That

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Chapter 73

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Chapter 73 (Which Master to Follow) It’s Part 4! Time for new PoVs, including my favorite collective in a single body! Title page indicates we’ll be getting the Shadesmar crew, Navani and Venli, plus Bridge Four. I’m slightly dubious about Bridge Four being given PoVs again–it worked before, but at the moment I feel like that’s indulging in character creep. I’m sure I’ll appreciate it when we actually get to tha

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Art: Alethi Glyphs

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Alethi Glyphs Artwork here. I’m not much into the glyphs and trying to decipher them. I have been far more involved and interested in the transliterative alphabets we got for Alethi and Thaylen in the past books, and trying to pull useful meanings from the encoded text. Glyphs are cool, but I am willing to let others do the work of puzzling them out and identifying phonemes.  Without looking closely at th

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Interlude I-9

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Interlude I-9 (Taravangian / The Sword) Icon: Compassionate Taravangian is on top today. Title: Are we meeting Nightblood? I’m not sure how I feel about that. That’s a mood right there. Beautiful concision to convey his situation. A great line. Yes, as expected he’s trying to work through Szeth. It’s got to be tough manipulating people when you only remember your plan some of the time. It’s

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Interlude I-8

Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers. Interlude I-8 (Chiri-Chiri) Just want to say that the larkin image in the chapter header is delightful. Can’t wait to see what Chiri-Chiri looks like all grown up! I find it wonderful that Rysn and her ilk are called “soft ones.” That is such a flexible term, with potential to serve as insult, endearment, or anything in between.  Important! Chiri-Chiri notes the lack of rhythms in human conversation, s

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