Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3)

by Brandon Sanderson

Father would approve that for certain, though Adolin worried. Would they have the funds to pay all these people? Wages were based on a man’s rank, and you couldn’t just make slaves of men for no reason.

Adolin. Staunch capitalist.

A young spearman wept on the ground nearby, screaming for his mother as he crawled across the stone, trailing blood. Fearspren mixed with orange, sinewy painspren all around. Dalinar shook his head and rammed his sword down into the boy’s back as he passed.

Dalinar is ruthess.

“Raid those buildings,” Dalinar said, pointing at a line of homes. “Let’s see how well they fight while they watch us rounding up their families.”

Dalinar War Criminal

“I think you underestimate the stubbornness a crown can press into a man or woman’s mind, Navani.”

Three men bearing their son’s name had lived and died in that time. The soldier who had been forged in Amaram’s army. The slave, so bitter and angry. His parents had never met Captain Kaladin, bodyguard to the most powerful man in Roshar. And then … there was the next man, the man he was becoming. A man who owned the skies and spoke ancient oaths. Five years had passed. And four lifetimes.

He reached over and held up the hair in front of Kaladin’s forehead. “Storms, boy. What did you do? Hit a lighteyes?” “Yes,” Kaladin said. Then punched him.

Fuck yeah

“And what,” Roshone said, “makes you think you can order anyone around, boy?” Kaladin turned back and swept his arm before him, summoning Syl. A bright, dew-covered Shardblade formed from mist into his hand. He spun the Blade and rammed her down into the floor in one smooth motion. He held the grip, feeling his eyes bleed to blue. Everything grew still. Townspeople froze, gaping. Roshone’s eyes bulged. Curiously, Kaladin’s father just lowered his head and closed his eyes. “Any other questions?” Kaladin asked.

Goddamn

“It was sent by Taravangian, king of Jah Keved and Kharbranth.”

This is not good.

“Sorry,” she said, opening her eyes. “It wasn’t a lecture, it was a creative application of my tongue to keep you distracted.” Looking at his lips, she could think of some other creative applications for her tongue.…

Well then.

“Inappropriate?” Pattern said. “Such as … dividing by zero?”

Slut!

The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate.

“Oh!” Pattern said suddenly, bursting up from the bowl to hover in the air. “You were talking about mating! I’m to make sure you don’t accidentally mate, as mating is forbidden by human society until you have first performed appropriate rituals! Yes, yes. Mmmm. Dictates of custom require following certain patterns before you copulate. I’ve been studying this!”

“Of course it is!” Adolin said, letting go of her. “But, I mean, you’re a woman.”

Oh come on

“It’s because you hate me,” Pattern said softly. “I can die, Shallan. I can go. They will send you another to bond.”

Poor Pattern

“I love tradition,” Dalinar said to Kadash. “I’ve fought for tradition. I make my men follow the codes. I uphold Vorin virtues. But merely being tradition does not make something worthy, Kadash. We can’t just assume that because something is old it is right.”

“You’re not monsters,” Kaladin whispered. “You’re not soldiers. You’re not even the seeds of the void. You’re just … runaway slaves.”

The parshman pulled him even closer. “They may have taken your freedom, but they took our minds.”

“Well,” Dalinar said, wagging his bent knife. “We looked at this place here, this kingdom, and we realized, ‘Hey, all these people have stuff .’ And we figured … hey, maybe we should have that stuff. So we took it.”

AMERICA!

“They’ll want to enslave us again,” Sah continued, taking the hatchet and hacking at the log next to him, starting to strip off the rough bark as Kaladin had instructed, so they could have tinder. “We’re money lost, and a dangerous precedent. Your kind will expend a fortune figuring out what changed to give us back our minds, and they’ll find a way to reverse it. They’ll strip from

“Is it, um, girl stuff?” “Girl stuff,” she said flatly. “You know. When you … uh…”

“I’m aware of the biology, Adolin, thank you. Why is it that every time a woman is feeling a little odd, men are so quick to blame her cycle? As if she’s suddenly unable to control herself because she has some pains. Nobody thinks that for men.

Standing beside her was Mraize, one of the leaders of the Ghostbloods.

O fuck

“Morality is an axis that doesn’t interest us,” Mraize said calmly. “Only loyalty and power are relevant, for morality is as ephemeral as the changing weather. It depends upon the angle from which you view it. You will see, as you work with us, that I am right.”

“You say that,” Taravangian said. “Many people do, but our laws will claim innocent men—for all judges are flawed, as is our knowledge. Eventually, you will execute someone who does not deserve it. This is the burden society must carry in exchange for order.”

“Yes … I do too. But it’s not a matter of morality, is it? It’s a matter of thresholds. How many guilty may be punished before you’d accept one innocent casualty? A thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred? When you consider, all calculations are meaningless except one. Has more good been done than evil? If so, then the law has done its job. And so … I must hang all four men.” He paused. “And I would weep, every night, for having done it.”

Taravangian is wrong, the Stormfather said. You are not a hypocrite, Son of Honor. “I am,” Dalinar said softly. “But sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a person who is in the process of changing.”

He needed more than vague explanations and abstract ideas—but those were the very soul of art. If you could explain something perfectly, then you’d never need art. That was the difference between a table and a beautiful woodcutting. You could explain the table: its purpose, its shape, its nature. The woodcutting you simply had to experience.

“No, they’re people. And they’re angry, with good reason.” A gust of wind blew across him, making him drift to the side. “I know that feeling. It burns in you, worms inside your brain until you forget everything but the injustice done to you. It’s how I felt about Elhokar. Sometimes a world of rational explanations can become meaningless in the face of that all-consuming desire to get what you deserve.”

Puuli pulled his cart past the cove. Here, one of the foreigner captains—with long eyebrows and tan skin, rather than the proper blue skin—was trying to make sense of her ruined ship.

Truly tragic, Puuli said. He complimented the captain on the mast though. It was a very nice mast.

Dick envy

What was that small spren that had crept out from beneath Eshonai’s corpse? It looked like a small ball of white fire; it gave off little rings of light and trailed a streak behind it. Like a comet.

ALL THINGS HAVE A SOUL. A VASE, A WALL, A CHAIR. AND WHEN A VASE IS BROKEN, IT MIGHT DIE IN THE PHYSICAL REALM, BUT FOR A TIME ITS SOUL REMEMBERS WHAT IT WAS. SO ALL THINGS DIE TWICE. ITS FINAL DEATH IS WHEN MEN FORGET IT WAS A VASE, AND THINK ONLY OF THE PIECES. I IMAGINE THE VASE FLOATING AWAY THEN, ITS FORM DISSOLVING INTO THE NOTHINGNESS.

“You don’t eat the corpses,” Dalinar said to it. “You kill for pleasure, don’t you? I often think of how spren and man are so different, but this we share. We can both murder.”

“Maybe you’re right, and I am a tyrant! Maybe letting my armies into your city is a terrible risk. But maybe you don’t have good options! Maybe all the good men are dead, so all you have is me! Spitting into the storm isn’t going to change that, Fen. You can risk possibly being conquered by the Alethi, or you can definitely fall to the Voidbringer assault alone!”

And then there’s the matter of Drehy…” “What matter?” “Well, he’s been courting a man, you see…” Kaladin threw on his coat, chuckling. “I did know about that one. You only now noticed?”

“The men like you, Sig, and they put a lot of stock in what you have to say. But you should try to understand what they want out of life, and respect that, rather than projecting onto them what you think they should want out of life.”

Just don’t present your beliefs as our code. Present them as yours, and make a good argument. Maybe the men will listen.”

Lunamor didn’t push Renarin to talk. Some people you wanted to press, draw them out. Others you wanted to let move at their own pace. Like the difference between a stew you brought to a boil and one you kept at a simmer.

“No,” Lunamor said, leaning in. “You can be you without this being bad thing. You can admit you act and think differently from your brother, but can learn not to see this as flaw. It is just Renarin Kholin.”

Despite his urging, it was a solemn, respectful group who lifted the bridge. They were slaves no longer. Storms, in their pockets they carried riches! It glowed fiercely, and soon their skin did as well. Kaladin took his place at the front. Together they carried the bridge on one final run—reverently, as if it were the bier of a king, being taken to his tomb for his eternal rest.

“I don’t mind people believing what works for them, Uncle. That’s something nobody ever seems to understand—I have no stake in their beliefs. I don’t need company to be confident.”

“They will try,” Jasnah said, “to define you by something you are not. Don’t let them. I can be a scholar, a woman, a historian, a Radiant. People will still try to classify me by the thing that makes me an outsider. They want, ironically, the thing I don’t do or believe to be the prime marker of my identity. I have always rejected that, and will continue to do so.”

Shallan nodded again. She wasn’t working with the Ghostbloods. That was Veil. And Jasnah didn’t need to know about Veil. Jasnah couldn’t know about Veil.

Ugh

Shallan cocked her head as she saw Renarin glance at his father. Dalinar responded with a raised fist. He came so Renarin wouldn’t feel awkward, Shallan realized. It can’t be improper or feminine for the prince to be here if the storming Blackthorn decides to attend.

“Well, you have a chance, Lyn. A chance nobody has had for ages, a chance in millions. Either you seize it, and in so doing decide you’re worthy, or you leave and give up.” He pressed the gemstone back down into her hand. “But if you leave, you don’t get to complain. As long as you keep trying, there’s a chance. When you give up? That’s when the dream dies.”

You will have forgotten much, following the destruction of the times past.

Like the readers of this series.

“One … of the brawlers you fought will never walk,” Bashin admitted. “Another had to have his arm removed. A third babbles like a child. His brain doesn’t work anymore.”

Holy shit

You can’t spend forever floating between worlds, Cousin, she thought. Eventually you’ll need to decide where you want to belong. Life was so much harder, but potentially so much more fulfilling, when you found the courage to choose.

“I don’t know what changed. My people must have been tricked somehow. In any case, these Fused are as much my enemies as they are yours—more, even. And no, I can’t say what they will do. I spent my entire life trying to avoid thinking of them.”

Allegory for terrorism

“Yeah,” Lopen added. “Drehy likes other guys. That’s like … he wants to be even less around women than the rest of us. It’s the opposite of feminine. He is, you could say, extra manly.”

Ha