Oathbringer - Blog Posts

Teft woke up. Unfortunately.

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Me too teft, me too

Shout out to ELISTA for being the most relatable character, after shalan.

You know he would.

okay yeah yeah villain but the diagram is so cool you guys

Wall I made for this (featuring: Russian, Spanish, toki pona, DNA code, women's script, a few alphabets, some geometry and arithmetic, and a language that I invented, among other things. I had fun with this)

kal doodle

Concept: Jasnah Kholin with pants

I had like twenty scenes from the first three Stormlight books I wanted to illustrate before the fourth book came out, but . . . *Glances at countdown to RoW I definitely don't have on my bedside table* Yeah, that's not gonna happen. So here are some doodles of Syl.

Shallan

I genuinely wasn't sure which version I prefer (my sister likes the first more, my mom likes the second) so I went with posting both. What does the internet think?

Shallan is supposed to be summoning her Shardblade (well, Patternblade) here, but I'm not sure how well that was communicated. Oh well. The "fractally" spirals are cool though. I mean, they're not actually fractals but they're still reminiscent of Pattern, so good enough.

(From the fantastic fantasy series the Stormlight Archive. Can't wait for Rhythm of War!)

So I was listening to the Shardcast about the love triangle between Shallan, Kaladin and Adolin, and someone pointed this out. At this point in Oathbringer, on page 1201, Kaladin is talking about Shallan and the fact that "she reminds me of someone." While we aren't given a direct answer as to who that someone is, the next page starts off with Syl saying "That's a nice rock" and Kaladin saying something nerdy and specific about that rock. Who did Kaladin care about who loved rocks? Tien.

Stormlight Archive dates

WoK was released in 2010

WoR was released in 2014

OB was released in 2017

Book 4 is planned to be released in 2020

If Brandon continues at this rate, the 10th book will be released between 2038 and 2045. Brandon Sanderson will be 70 in 2045. I will be 42. So young people reading the series now will end up with a basically lifelong journey with our Rosharan friends.

Oathbringer review/thoughts *SPOILERS CONTAINED*

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

Book 3 of the Stormlight Archive series

Page count: 1233

Genre: fantasy

***SPOILERS CONTAINED BEYOND THIS POINT***

Wow. What a ride. This book was not only so exciting that I stayed up past midnight three nights in a row reading it, but also incredibly meaningful.

I was upset by Elhokar's death because I had hopes for Moash and Elhokar was close to redemption. And by upset I mean I was throwing my pillow down the stairs. That scene where Kaladin had his breakdown and the humans and parshmen he cared about started fighting really got to me. Poor Kal has gone through so much and he just needs love. (Not necessarily romantic, just love in general)

This book really addresses the meanings of right and wrong, after getting to know the parshmen with Kaladin and finding out that the humans we're the voidbringers.

I think there's a lot of representation of different human problems and mental illnesses in this book: split/multiple personality with Shallan, depression with Kaladin, epilepsy with Renarin, amnesia and alcohol addiction with Dalinar. As Brandon Sanderson himself said, character's limitations are more interesting than their strengths, and the realism of these characters is one of the amazing things about these books, as well as the detailed worlds and cultures he created. And, of course, the crossover with Warbreaker and the mention of Vivenna.

I loved this book. So much. I'm glad Shallan and Adolin ended up together, because I don't think I could imagine Kaladin and Shallan. Also, Dalinar fighting off Odium was the coolest thing ever. I'm so happy that Jasnah became queen.

I think it's awesome that Dalinar learned to read at the end because as he said, the men claimed battle and the women claimed literature, and now with Jasnah, Shallan, Lift, Lyn, etc, learning to fight and Dalinar and Renarin learning to read, they're reclaiming what used to be closed to them. It's so cool.

Thank you, Brandon, for this amazing new update on Roshar, and I can't wait for the next one.

In honor of Oathbringer, here’s a drawing of Kaladin Stormblessed from the Stormlight Archive! I’m reading Oathbringer right now and enjoying it a lot. Kaladin’s got to be my favorite character, although Shallan is a close second.

Shallan Davar from the Stormlight Archive, drawing with charcoal by the light of a fire broam. Drawn with MyPaint.

Very important for Stormlight Archive fans who are reading the preview chapters!!!!

All right, fronds, Tor has announced that starting August 22, they’ll be posting Oathbringer chapters! This is terribly exciting for people who want to read the preview chapters, but for people like me, who want to wait and savor (and liveblog) the whole book at once as opposed to piecemeal and spread out over several months, it’s kind of a source of anxiety…

I know that I’m going to be dodging spoilers for almost three months now (thanks, tor). And while I would never want to dampen people’s enjoyment of the preview novel chapters, I’m adding my request to the pile of people saying, yo please please please tag your spoilers!!! 

Aaaaand as much as I love tumblr, it can be kind of…a complicated endeavor making sure that posts end up where you want them–or don’t. So here’s a friendly review of how to make sure spoilers don’t end up where people who don’t want to see them…won’t.

Read mores are your friends. That little line makes everything so, so much easier to avoid. Read mores are your friends.

Wait until the fifth tag. Here’s one of tumblr’s less well-known features: only the first five tags on a post will show up in the public tag. So if the FIRST tag you put on a post is #brandon sanderson, that shit’s showing up in the #brandon sanderson tag. BUT if you put #one #two #three #four #five #brandon sanderson, (or similar “junk tags”–I tend to use // marks), then we’re all safe. It won’t end up in the tracked tag and it’ll be easier to avoid spoilers in the public, tracked tags. You still maintain organization on your personal blog, because it’s still in YOUR #brandon sanderson tag, but you won’t ruin someone else’s day by having it show up in the public tag with spoilers attached.

The first five tags work the other way, too! No one wants to scream into the void and not get a response–I’m on board with that. So somewhere in your first five tags, put #oathbringer or #oathbringer spoilers or even #stormlight archive spoilers. That way, people reading the preview chapters have a place to go to interact with other people reading the preview chapters, and people who want to go into November fresh and clean and unspoiled can still check the regular SA and Bsandy tags without fearing they’ll get spoiled.

Don’t put reactions in the tags. A lot of people have blacklist settings so that even if a post is blocked, the tags still show up as readable–this makes it easier to see why things were blocked, but it also runs the risk of tags like “#omg and then JASNAH did the THING and I DIED” spoiling even tiny things. Keep tags for…well, tags for a few months, and add additional screaming or reactions to the bottom of your actual post.

Discord and Mibbit are your friends. The nice thing about both messaging services is that you can set up different chats and servers that are subsets of the regular ones. So make a spoiler chat separate from the regular, spoiler-free chat, and go wild.

TAG EVERYTHING! Even if it’s a meme or a stupid shitpost or a vagueblog or something that doesn’t seem like it’s spoilers–TAG IT ANYWAY. If it’s even tangentially related to Oathbringer, TAG IT. Especially memes, tbh. Memes are insidious, and often innocent, but with a closer look, they reveal more than they might have intended. Tag literally everything, even if you don’t think it’s spoilers, even if you think it’s annoying. Those of us avoiding shit will thank you.

KEEP tagging stuff, even after the book is released! Maybe you read the preview chapters and so you’ve got a 300-page headstart, or maybe you speed-read, or maybe you took time off from work just to read, and maybe you finish two days after the book comes out. Keep tagging spoilers. Some people read slower, or have time commitments or work keeping them away from the book, or simply read a few chapters a day to savor it, or want to read faster but can’t because they’re liveblogging it (hello, fronds!). But just because you are finished doesn’t mean everyone else is, and continuing to tag for spoilers is super necessary, even six months–or longer–out from the release date.

All right, I hope that didn’t come out as patronizing or anything. I’ve just found that an occasional reminder of the ins and outs of tumblr’s more useful systems can be super helpful, especially if it’s stuff that newer users might not have encountered yet, like the fifth-tag-rule.

ANYWAY, for everyone starting with the preview chapters, ONLY SEVEN DAYS UNTIL OATHBRINGER!!!! Those of us waiting the remaining 90 days until November 14 thank you in advance for tagging your shit. <3

….shit, 90 days? that’s closer than I thought it was…..guess, I need to get a jump on my WoR reread!!

hey what's up stormlight archive tumblr

Oathbringer thoughts: Eshonai

What if, just maybe, part of the point is that we are supposed to be angry and bitter about Eshonai’s death? Maybe, given what we know right now, it is supposed to come across as completely pointless. 

It seems like no one (except Timbre and sometimes Venli) cares. Eshonai’s death happens off screen and the only reason we get confirmation that she is dead is that Ulim guides Venli and Demid to her to retrieve the plate. We learned all the way back in WoK that scavenging from corpses goes against Listener culture, and yet here we are with Venli being forced to do so anyway. The only reason we even find Eshonai’s corpse is that Venli is being forced to do things that go against her culture. Eshonai is dead. Their culture is being erased. 

There are various parallels between the Listeners and the native peoples of the Americas. Far too often their plights are ignored. Indigenous women are murdered or go missing at disturbing rates and yet it almost never makes the news. Their deaths are horrible and pointless and it seems like no one cares. When they do get talked about it is almost always (at least from what I have seen) as an after thought. Much like Eshonai. Maybe that’s part of the point.

But you know what? Even with Eshonai dead, this isn’t the end of her story. Just because her death happened off screen doesn’t mean that will continue to be true. One of the next two books is going to give us Eshonai flashbacks. We are going to get to know her and her world better. And, I suspect, we are going to get to see that awful battle from her perspective and be with her as she falls into the chasm.  

Ulim says it looks like she drowned in the flood waters, but my guess is there is more going on. She had plate, a blade, and storm form. We know she was at least somewhat trained with the plate and blade. Kaladin and Shallan survived spending a high storm in the chasms when they were both a mess and Kaladin didn’t have his powers and Shallan was wary of hers. Eshonai should have had the tools to survive. I can imagine a heartwrenching scene coming where Eshonai knows that she could save herself using the power that she has in storm form, but fighting that power and rejecting it. Or Eshonai being given the chance during that first Everstorm to become a fused and choosing to die instead. Some kind of intense internal struggle where she makes the choice to die rather than give in to something she can’t accept. 

Her death will still be tragic. We can (maybe even should) still be angry that she died, but until we get her flashback chapters I’m going to cling to the hope that there is more going on than we currently know.