Words of Radiance: Chapter 89

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“	TherehastobeananswerWhatistheanswerStopTheParshendiOneofthemYestheyarethemissingPushforththeAlethiodestroythemoutrightbeforethisoneobtainstheirpowerIwillformabridge.	”
–From the Diagram, Floorboard 17: paragraph 2, every second letter starting with the second

Point of view: Dalinar, Adolin
Setting: Urithiru

Progression of the Chapter:

Dalinar has a vision of light and warmth; he awakes in his rooms in Urithiru; people are arriving from the warcamps.

Adolin walks the halls of Urithiru pondering life; he encounters Sadeas, who intends to undermine Dalinar and take leadership from him; Adolin attacks and kills Sadeas; shocked, he drops Oathbringer out a window and removes the traces of his presence.

Dalinar ascends to the roof of the tower; he shouts at the Stormfather, who finally responds; their conversation is depressing; Dalinar demands to be made a Knight Radiant; defying the Stormfather's anger, he states the First Ideal of the Radiants, and the Second Ideal of the Bondsmiths; the Words are accepted, with conditions; the Stormfather denies having sent the morning's vision; Dalinar descends to meet Shallan and Kaladin; they identify their three Orders, and Renarin joins them as a fourth; Dalinar shares the bad news confirmed by the Stormfather; Kaladin prepares for a trip to Hearthstone while Renarin goes to requisition spheres for him; Dalinar and Shallan consider the situation and pledge to do what they can.

Quote of the Chapter:

“

Warm light bathed him. A deep, enveloping, piercing warmth. A warmth that soaked down deep through his skin, into his very self. He stared at that light, and was not blinded. The source was distant, but he knew it. Knew it well. He smiled. Then he awoke.

”

Dalinar doesn't know the significance of this vision, but it's profoundly beautiful. The first part of the vision places it in his childhood home, with his brother laughing in the next room and his just-outgrown collection of wooden swords carved like Shardblades still on display. It's fairly clear that this is not a memory - or at least, the part about the light isn't - but ... what is it?

(WoB says that the last chapter of The Stormlight Archive has already been seen in one of these two books. Does this seem a likely candidate? It may be a preview of Dalinar moving from the Cognitive Realm to Beyond. On the other hand, a reader has suggested the Fleet scene or Taln arriving at Kholinar.)

Development of the Chapter:

This is another chapter with several major events and a plethora of minor ones.

Aside from the content of the vision/dream Dalinar experienced, the timing is weird and the source is unknown. There's no highstorm, and the Stormfather denies sending it. So where did it come from? Perhaps readers will find out at the end of book ten?

There are other complications in Dalinar's life for now, though. He's got a zillion or so people arriving from the warcamps, for one thing. The new arrivals were able to make the trip much faster than the four armies, partly due to the map he sent and partly because they needn't watch for Parshendi. It's a good thing, too. Those already in Urithiru need the supplies and Stormlight from the camps, and those who had stayed behind need to get off the Plains before either the Everstorm or the highstorm wraps around Roshar to strike again.

Amongst those new arrivals ... Sadeas. It doesn't take much conversation to explain his coming in spite of continuing opposition to Dalinar; in fact, it's because of that opposition. His sole purpose in "obeying" the order is to continue his efforts to weaken Dalinar's authority. He's too short-sighted to drop his petty quarrel for the sake of all Roshar, vindictive old fool that he is.

“

"You can't have an army with two generals, son. Your father and I, we're two old whitespines who both want a kingdom. It's him or me. We've been pointed that way since Gavilar died." "It doesn't have to be that way." "It does. Your father will never trust me again, Adolin, and you know it." Sadeas's face darkened. "I will take this from him. This city, these discoveries. It's just a setback."

”

Adolin really can't at all be blamed for his reaction. Sadeas just said outright that he intends to destroy Dalinar by any means available; though he knows Dalinar is right, he simply doesn't care. Nothing matters but his own ambition. Why was Sadeas so willing to reveal all this to Adolin? Why did he so deliberately needle Adolin with it? Perhaps he thought the Alethi traditions and customs, the game of political and social manipulation, would keep Adolin from taking direct action against him?

He was wrong.

Just how much of Adolin's violent response to Sadeas is triggered by the disruption to his view of life caused by the return of the Radiants? He's been through a lot lately: the loss and restoration of his fiancée, the march to the center of the Plains, the battle, the fight with Eshonai, his thrashing by Szeth, his father's seeming destruction and rescue by Kaladin, Kaladin going all Radiant and flying off to fight Szeth, Shallan going all Radiant and bringing the armies to Urithiru just before they all died in the Stormclash - it's a wonder anyone is functional anymore. Humans are resilient as a whole, though, and survival is a strong motivator. All that said, however, the fact is that the author chose to open this section with Adolin feeling overwhelmed specifically by Shallan's change in status, and the reversal of their relative positions. So ... is that partly to blame for his eruption?

A major question for Oathbringer is how successfully Adolin managed to destroy the evidence. Did anyone see him in that part of the tower, someone he didn't see? What did he do with his bloodstained cuffs? How is he going to explain cutting them off, if someone notices before he can destroy the shirt entirely? Also, why toss Oathbringer out the window? Granted, it takes the Blade (theoretically) out of the control of Team Sadeas, but eventually someone's going to wonder where it got to. Then what? Maybe he should have tossed Sadeas out the window, too.

As a side note, this is one of the rare cases where Sanderson puts in a bit of graphic violence ... and it's more disturbing for being the exception. It sets the scene apart, in a sort of bizarre I-fell-into-the-wrong-book way ... which is pretty much how Adolin is feeling the whole time. Effective, no?

Back to Dalinar. On top of the mass migration of the Alethi, he's got to figure out what to do about storms, Oathgates, Voidbringers, and Radiants. And he's got a Stormfather to confront. Also, he recognizes what the Oathgate in Kholinar must be, and considers Shallan's intent to unlock them all.Given that only the Oathgate to the Shattered Plains had been left unlocked, might there be a connection between the unlocked Oathgate and the Plains being shattered? Some sort of backlash from whatever locked the other nine Oathgates? Or something like that?

This place is huge. A hundred stories, each successively smaller than the lower by the depth of a gardening terrace ... that bottom floor by itself has to be enormous. Dalinar notices that the top is so high there is very little crem on it.

But there's a bigger reason for Dalinar to be at the top of the tower beyond appreciating the scale. It seems to be the best place for confronting the Stormfather - and if no one answers, well, at least Dalinar is alone this time! Fortunately, he answers - and readers finally begin to learn more of what's behind the visions. They were sent by Honor/Tanavast, and as his personification, the Stormfather literally had no choice about sending them. (Readers don't yet know, still, whether he'd ever sent them to anyone before Gavilar.)

Stormfather is downright hostile here, though:

“

"Yes, I have to bond with you, but I want you to know that I hate you and I hope you die. Also, you don't get to have a Shardblade or Plate."

”

Still, the scene yields a lot of information. World rulers ignore warnings of the Everstorm; most think Dalinar is mad; Taravangian is pretending to be a friend; parshmen who come in contact with the Everstorm will assuredly become Voidbringers; there's rioting in Kholinar; there's a plague in the Purelake. Perhaps there's an Iriali curse about living in interesting times.

Also, the second Ideal of the Bondsmiths is revealed:

“

"I will unite instead of divide, Stormfather. I will bring men together."

”

Once the Stormfather gets done with his rumbling and grumbling, readers get to the title scene: The Four. Shallan and Kaladin are waiting for Dalinar in the very top room of the tower, with its ten pillars mirroring the ten Oathgates and the central pillar like Urithiru. Apparently this meeting was planned, and Renarin heard them talking about it, or something. As Dalinar demonstrates what Kaladin and Shallan have told him about sucking in Stormlight, he finishes healing, and knows he's done it before, though he doesn't seem to know for sure when. Shallan identifies the three Orders to which they belong, from her studies, and then Renarin pops in.

We all know thhave only Renarin’s word that his spren, Glys, has made him a Truthwatcher. To support his side of the argument, we know (and Shallan knows) that Truthwatchers are one of the Orders; we also know from WoB that Renarin does see a spren no one else sees. His eyesight has healed from holding Stormlight, and he certainly hears the screaming of the dead spren when he summons his Shardblade, which only happens when a bonded (proto-) Radiant touches it. If he is a Truthwatcher, his Surges would be Progression and Illumination—a combination eminently suited to creating an Order’s “quirk” of looking into the future. It’s worth pointing out that Honor claimed Cultivation was better at seeing the future than he was; with Palah/the Truthwatchers directly opposite Ishar/the Bondsmiths on the KR diagram, it seems reasonable that they would be the ones most closely tied to her abilities. Also: why put Palah in the chapter arch, which most readers don’t really notice, unless she’s there in the same capacity as the other three?