[OB] Things in Oathbringer that are easy to overlook?

[Jofwu he/him]

I've got a list of interesting tidbits from each Stormlight book, and I'd like to start work on adding Oathbringer to the pile. I called this "Things You May Have Missed". The idea is to try and keep track of things that are easy to miss on your first read, particularly for someone who isn't deeply embedded in the fandom. For example, I noticed last night that Lopen seems to have first noticed his spren at the end of chapter 55.

See the existing lists for more examples of the kind of thing I'm looking for. I've got a few already in for Oathbringer. It could be things that are simply confusing or hard to notice, but it could also be things that Brandon has added or confirmed via WoB.

Notice that I've already got a good list going for Cosmere-related things. Check that before proposing more of those. Don't bother mentioning things like "Azure is Vivenna". I'm primarily looking for things about Oathbringer specifically.

 

[supersmith]

I noticed that Lift thinks of Nightblood as a girl while everyone else thinks of it as a boy. 

[Patrick Star]

Vivenna having a new awakened blade, which I refer to as Whiteblood, is a HUGE Checkhov's Gun that a lot of people forget about.

Currently, Nightblood and Whiteblood are the only two things on Roshar (that we know of) that can permanently kill fused reliably.  However, they can also kill splinters like radiantspren and the unmade.

Having one of the two be unaccounted for should be terrifying.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

7 minutes ago, Patrick Star said:

Currently, Nightblood and Whiteblood are the only two things on Roshar (that we know of) that can permanently kill fused reliably.  However, they can also kill splinters like radiantspren and the unmade.

 

Szeth should just go stab all the Unmade then. Are the characters aware of what Nightblood can do? 

[Weltall]

42 minutes ago, Patrick Star said:

Currently, Nightblood and Whiteblood are the only two things on Roshar (that we know of) that can permanently kill fused reliably.

We don't actually know this for a fact, we just strongly assume it because of how Nightblood works.

Quote

Chaos [PENDING REVIEW]

When Nightblood killed the Fused, are those Fused souls retrievable?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

RAFO.

source

And since it came up in another topic recently:

The man killed by 'the hog' in Interlude 10 is Sheler, the same man who was responsible for getting Tien killed.

[Kramerfarve]

In chapter 120 it mentions “Instead, he found only Jasnah Kholin, looking completely nonplussed. A glow faded around her, different from the smoke of her Stormlight. Like geometric shapes outlining her” 

personally ive only read the stormlight archive and the mistborn saga, so does anyone know what’s going on here?

[MountainKing]

32 minutes ago, Kramerfarve said:

In chapter 120 it mentions “Instead, he found only Jasnah Kholin, looking completely nonplussed. A glow faded around her, different from the smoke of her Stormlight. Like geometric shapes outlining her” 

personally ive only read the stormlight archive and the mistborn saga, so does anyone know what’s going on here?

Some people believe it refers to shard plate

[Spoolofwhool]

5 hours ago, Patrick Star said:

Currently, Nightblood and Whiteblood are the only two things on Roshar (that we know of) that can permanently kill fused reliably.  However, they can also kill splinters like radiantspren and the unmade.

Vivienna's sword probably can't permanently kill Fused, since unlike Nightblood it doesn't seem to be annihilating entities. Best not to make that assumption.

[Weltall]

3 hours ago, Kramerfarve said:

personally ive only read the stormlight archive and the mistborn saga, so does anyone know what’s going on here?

Like MountainKing said, it's  possible that Jasnah has either progressed far enough that she can summon Plate or what we saw was her just about to reach that point and she had some sort of 'Proto-Plate'. The way that the shapes are said to be outlining her and how she was (apparently) throwing grown men around like ragdolls are suggestive, and Jasnah has been in full paranoia mode over the Ghostbloods so her keeping the ability to summon Plate a secret wouldn't be at all out of character for her.

[Patrick Star]

3 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Vivienna's sword probably can't permanently kill Fused, since unlike Nightblood it doesn't seem to be annihilating entities. Best not to make that assumption.

The fused stayed away from her at the wall in Kholinar, they were super scared of the sword.

[Spoolofwhool]

6 minutes ago, Patrick Star said:

The fused stayed away from her at the wall in Kholinar, they were super scared of the sword.

Well, I don't doubt the sword is dangerous, but I don't think that's enough of a qualifier to say that it can permanently kill them. 

[Jofwu he/him]

Vivenna's sword is almost certainly far far FAR less powerful than Nightblood. We really don't have any reason to think that it's significant. They are probably similar in design, but Nightblood is WAY more powerful and dangerous than it "should" be. 

Not to say her sword doesn't matter. It's a cool application of Awakening. It's a new kind of Shardblade with some pros and cons that set it apart from the spren variety. There's probably more to it than we realize. It seems to be sentient.

But that doesn't mean it's anything like Nightblood. Vasher suggested that Awakening a sword light Nightblood would require 1000 Breaths. Brandon has said that Nightblood is FAR more Invested than this, however, and that's what makes him notable.

[Song she/her]

The fact that Shallan spots a lady at the bar in Urithiru who dresses like Tarah...

[Overlord Jebus]

4 hours ago, Song said:

The fact that Shallan spots a lady at the bar in Urithiru who dresses like Tarah...

Care to be more specific? I am very interested in this...

[Bort he/him]

14 hours ago, Kramerfarve said:

In chapter 120 it mentions “Instead, he found only Jasnah Kholin, looking completely nonplussed. A glow faded around her, different from the smoke of her Stormlight. Like geometric shapes outlining her” 

personally ive only read the stormlight archive and the mistborn saga, so does anyone know what’s going on here?

I found this pretty confusing, since apparently the word 'nonplussed' has different definitions depending on where you are, and I directly contacted Brandon and Peter for clarification.

It turns out that, in this case, nonplussed means 'not surprised,' in direct opposition to every other time I have ever read that word.

I thought it was Jasnah gaining her Shardplate for the first time, and she looked shocked when Adolin ran around the corner. Now I know that whatever happened was perfectly normal for Jasnah, and she did not look at all surprised. Which still makes me think the geometric lines was her Plate forming/leaving, but that she was used to it.

It's still jarring, since I don't think it makes sense now. - "Instead, he found only Jasnah Kholin, looking perfectly normal. A glow faded around her, different from the smoke of her Stormlight. Like geometric shapes outlining her." It doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

[Subvisual Haze]

Perhaps your list could include a couple of our Herald confirmations that some readers might have missed.  Jezrien, before being assassinated by Moash, was the drunk beggar Ahu loitering outside the Kholinar palace.  We saw him earlier in Oathbringer drunkenly commiserating with Dalinar during one of Dalinar's flashbacks, and met him all the way back in Gavilar's assassination as a drunk asking people "Have you seen me?".  Similarly Ash was confirmed to be Baxil's mistress, Mem's washerwoman Pom, and the source of countless defaced statues all across Roshar.

[Jofwu he/him]

Ooooo, thanks for pointing this out @Song. I've heard this mentioned before but didn't give it much attention. This time I dug up the passages. @Overlord Jebus The important bits I see:

Quote

OB ch. 44

“Uh . . .” Gaz scratched at his eye patch. “There’s a cute one at the bar. She might be Thaylen.”

“What color is her blouse?”

“Hm. Well, it’s low cut, and she’s grown some nice rockbuds . . . uh . . .”

[...]

“The younger one is drinking wine; the older one is trying to pick up the woman Gaz noticed. She’s not Thaylen, but she’s wearing Thaylen dress with a deep violet blouse and a forest-green skirt. I don’t like the pairing, but she seems to. She’s confident, used to playing with the attention of men. But I think she came here looking for someone, because she’s ignoring the soldier and keeps glancing over her shoulder.”

Quote

OB ch. 112

Tarah had been special. The darkeyed daughter of an assistant quartermaster, she had grown up helping with her father’s work. Though she was a hundred percent Alethi, she preferred dresses of an old-fashioned Thaylen style, which had an apronlike front with straps over the shoulders and skirts that ended right below the knee. She’d wear a buttoned shirt underneath, often in a bright color—brighter than most darkeyes could afford. Tarah knew how to squeeze the most out of her spheres.

[...]

“Storms,” she said, slipping around in front of him. “[Greenvines] get so embarrassed when you measure them. ‘Hold on, kid. I’m not making a pass at you because I’m putting a measuring tape up against your chest, I swear. . . .’ ” She lifted his spear, looking it over with a critical eye, testing the balance. “I wish you’d let me requisition a new one for you.”

I'm totally on board with this theory!

2 hours ago, Bort said:

It's still jarring, since I don't think it makes sense now. - "Instead, he found only Jasnah Kholin, looking perfectly normal. A glow faded around her, different from the smoke of her Stormlight. Like geometric shapes outlining her." It doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

Not "looking totally normal". More like "looking totally casual". The point is that she's fighting off Voidbringers while the look on her face says, "No big deal. What's next on my to-do list?"

[Patrick Star]

10 hours ago, Jofwu said:

But that doesn't mean it's anything like Nightblood. Vasher suggested that Awakening a sword light Nightblood would require 1000 Breaths. Brandon has said that Nightblood is FAR more Invested than this, however, and that's what makes him notable.

That's because Nightblood's been absorbing investiture for years now.  If Vivenna's sword was used to kill over and over, it would eventually get to the amount of investiture that Nightblood has.

[Philomath she/her]

10 hours ago, Song said:

The fact that Shallan spots a lady at the bar in Urithiru who dresses like Tarah...

I want this to be true so much. From the little we got of her, I really liked her. And (though I am not much invested in ships and their results so long as they are narratively satisfying) I really want her and Kaladin to get back together. 

[Jofwu he/him]

45 minutes ago, Patrick Star said:

That's because Nightblood's been absorbing investiture for years now.  If Vivenna's sword was used to kill over and over, it would eventually get to the amount of investiture that Nightblood has.

That's a theory. We don't know that this is how Nightblood works, or whether Vivenna's sword would work the same way.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Patrick Star said:

That's because Nightblood's been absorbing investiture for years now.  If Vivenna's sword was used to kill over and over, it would eventually get to the amount of investiture that Nightblood has.

I don't think Nightblood permanently holds onto the investiture though. That black liquid/smoke he emits is investiture after all, and Brandon has described him as leaky, so it seems likely that he's maintaining a constant power as all investiture he consumes is eventually emitted back into the world. Either way, Vivienna's sword wasn't shown to act in the same way where it consumed investiture like Nightblood, so even if Nightblood does grow stronger from consuming investiture, we don't even know if Vivienna's sword is consuming investiture. 

[Bernem he/him]

In addition to Jasnah, Dalinar has a shardplate-like experience in his vision with Venli that I didn’t catch the first time.  

Quote

Above, the man in the blue uniform leaped into the chasm. He fell beside the hole's perimeter and stretched one hand toward Venli. His other ground against the rock wall, hand scraping the stone. Something flashed around his arm. Lines of light, a framework that covered his body. His fingers didn't bleed as they scraped the stone.

 

[teknopathetic he/him]

There is a scene where Jasnah is frantically reading Way of Kings outloud because she is grieving over her father. Dalinar hears the words and says something like "is it possible for words to give off light? (or something like that. I am an audiobook listener).

The spoken words in Way of Kings, or maybe their rhythm, "glowed" when Dalinar heard them. There is something about that book, or the connection he has/will have with that book, that was invested. 

 

Later on in the series the book glows again (the final fight). Dalinar also has has a real dream-quest with the author of the book. One more weird thing is that the book glows faintly when Dalinar is confronting Odium. It even culminated to a lightening bolt cracking into the book.

 

That book is weeeeeiiiiird. 

[Subvisual Haze]

Wit/Hoid is alerted to Shallan's presence (under an illusion) in Kholinar because he has a jar of sand.  Sand specifically from Taldain which will turn from black to white in the presence of Stormlight being used.  Wit's jar of sand turning white on one side alerted him not only to someone under an illusion nearby (anything "stronger" likely would have attracted the yellow spren), but also give him a hint towards what direction they were from which side of the the bottle turned white.  A pretty clever low-tech trick which one can even employ without alerting Odium's yellow detection spren.

WOB below confirms this theory (although in this question he was talking about Mraize's vial of sand, Hoid's jar of sand is clearly serving the same purpose). 

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Mraize's Basement Emporium. Is that more like a trophy room or a "In case of emergencies" room?

Multiple people [PENDING REVIEW]

Or a bank vault?

Or a weapon's vault?

Or both?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

So, yes. 

*multiple people talking*

I mean, he can't use the Aether, right? He can't use the Aether, he doesn't have an Aether. But the sand, the sand does stuff. So a handful of sand is a really useful amount of sand to have if you're not a sandmaster. Because sand reacts to investiture. So if you let it fade and you take it somewhere, as soon as investiture goes kinetic, it'll turn white again. So you'll be able to use it to tell who's using inve..it works just like a Seeker, like bronze pulses.

So having white sand, having sand around is really good. If you can keep the little beasties that are growing on the sand around, they will react to basically the investiture equivalent of radiation. So that's handy.

source

 

[Song she/her]

14 hours ago, Overlord Jebus said:

Care to be more specific? I am very interested in this...

Shallan is doing an exercise with Ishnah where she has to close her eyes and remember the room. Gaz commented earlier about a cute Thaylen women.

Shallan says this: "She's not Thaylen, but she is wearing Thaylen dress with a deep violet blouse and Forrest-green skirt. I don't like the pairing, but she seems to. She is confident, used to playing with the attention of men. But I think she came here looking for someone because she's ignoring the soldiers and keeps glancing over her shoulder."

The clothes discription is too close to Tarah to be a coincidence. And it is also possible that she is looking for Kalladin as the whole of Urithiru must be talking about him.