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preservationandruin · 6 years

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Oathbringer Liveblog: Interludes Three

Our spread this time is Venli, Mem, and Sheler. We don’t know who all of these are, but Venli is back again.

I yell about Parshendi gender and gender in general (listen. listen. gender is fake), we get a look into Mraize’s house staff, a motherfucker makes a real big mistake in the Herdazian army, we get a beautiful inversion of traditional mythological imagery, and I love Timbre.

Odium’s grand purpose for Venli meant turning her into a showpiece.

So this is great. She’s basically telling the Parshmen and Voidbringers about what the humans did to the Parshendi. Her new form is called “envoyform” and it’s very tall, and gives her the ability to speak and understand all languages. She’s telling a version of the story that emphasizes that the Alethi feared that the Parshendi would cause an uprising among the Parshmen and they couldn’t stand having “slaves” who could think.

Not strictly true, but I highly doubt that wasn’t going across Alethi minds. Odium is giving the parshmen an origin myth through her--the listeners were the last of a generations, sacrificing themselves to free their enslaved brothers and sisters. The narrative is that Venli is the last of the Listeners.

Well, there’s Rlain, too, but she doesn’t know that. Anyway, Odium--like Gavilar--is portraying the Listeners as dead, dying, gone “into the songs,” an artifact, and fragment. That’s such bullshit. They were a living, breathing culture, not a fragmentary setpiece to be played with as a talking point.

Interestingly, Venli notes that the Alethi parshmen act very much like the Alethi. I’ll bet that has something to do with like, Connection? Like how Dalinar can figure out how people speak. Anyway. It’s been too long since I’ve read the Mistborn Two series to remember the specifics of like, the connection medallions.

So we get the strata of Voidbringer society--lowest are the normal Singers, then are Regals like Venli, who have bonded a Voidspren, then at the top we have the Fused.

Also, the fact that all the eligible fighting men were sent off to war has made conquering Alethkar much easier for the Voidbringers. She notes that the Parshmen still have far to go--they need to be instructed about the Rhythms, they act like humans, they call Regals “Brightness.”

That lopsided dress looked ridiculous. There was no reason to distinguish between genders except in mateform.

THEN WHY DO YOU GENDER YOURSELVES EVEN WHEN OUT OF IT??? WHY DON’T GENDERS ONLY APPLY TO MATEFORM?? WHY DOES EVERY CULTURE IN THE COSMERE STILL HAVE A MASSIVE LEAN TOWARD THE GENDER BINARY WHEN NOT EVEN EVERY HUMAN CULTURE IN OUR WORLD USED IT?? /nonbinary rant over

The Fused are still around; they’re dismissive of the singers and even the Regals. Also, we get that some of the Fused are just...very, very broken. One stares unblinking and always grins.

Venli points out that they’ll need human slaves if they want the land to actually be productive, but Rine--one of the Fused--points out that any human could be a Surgebinder. Also, we get that Parshendi do have gemhearts--they are almost bone-colored, and gorgeous in Venli’s estimation.

Also, the Voidbringers don’t know how the humans bond spren and more strongly than the Voidbringers do, without a gemheart. Rine believes that they need to be exterminated.

Anyway, Venli hears--distantly--the Rhythm of the Lost.

She’d always hated the Alethi, who had acted like they were benevolent parents encountering wild children to be educated. They had pointedly ignored the culture and advancements of Venli’s people, eyeing only the hunting grounds of the greatshells that they--because of translation errors--decided must be the listeners’ gods.

Absolutely fair, Venli. She points out that despite the airs of the Alethi, the only reason they could manage art and beautiful things was because they, unlike the Parshendi, had the resources.

Venli has been keeping the little cometspren in a pouch with her gemstones. it likes exploring rooms, and pulses awe at everything. I love it and want thirty of them. It keeps pulsing out little bits of rhythms--awe, curiosity. Venli notes that she can hear the old rhythms, and asks if that’s because of the spren, and it pulses to Resolve.

“What are you hoping to accomplish? Your kind betrayed us. Go find a human to bother.” It shrank further. Then pulsed to Resolve again.

I love it.

Over to Mem. They--whoever they are--are doing laundry. She’s going into the intricacies of getting blood and grease out of fabric without fading the color--which, especially before modern washing and drying, clearly was a bitch and a half. She’s Veden, it sounds like. Pom, her new assistant, is apparently gorgeous.

Women like Pom didn’t usually end up as washgirls, though she did tend to stare daggers at any man who got too close. Maybe that was it.

Harold...

Oh, she works for Mraize! That explains why there are bizarre bloodstains on his clothes. Anyway, they go in to a room with Mraize’s stuff--including tapestries of the Heralds--and Pom goes strange. And then attacks one of the tapestries with a knife.

HELLO, SHALASH!!

I was wondering if she would show up again. Anyway, Mraize is surprisingly chill about it--apparently, he was trying to draw her out.

“Ancient one, would you care for something to drink?” Pom narrowed her eyes at him, then hopped off the chair. She walked quickly to Mraize and used one hand on his chest to push him aside. She pulled open the door. “I know where Talenelat is,” Mraize said. Pom froze.

Oh man. Apparently, whatever was in Mraize’s suit was called aether, and he praises Mem highly, approves a huge raise for her, and says she’s a genius.

He’s dangerous and strange and amoral, but damn, I can’t help but like Mraize.

Back over to Venli. She’s being carried over the land by the Fused, and thinking about how much Eshonai would have liked this. Venli, on the other hand, appears to get airsickness. They’ve reached Kholinar, so this will be interesting.

If any of these motherfuckers hurt Gavinor I will be furious. He’s three and he’s been through enough.

Apparently, here she’ll be truly practicing her oratory.

We skip again, to Sheler, being told that he has three choices by a herdazian general. I LOVE HERDAZIAN JUSTICE LISTEN TO THIS:

“You have three choices.” The general’s manacles clinked as he twisted his hands in them. “First, you can choose the sword. Now, that might be a clean death. A good beheading rarely hurts. Unfortunately, it won’t be a headsman who gets the chance with you. We’ll give the sword to the women you abused. Each gets a hack, one after another. How long it goes will depend on them.” “This is outrageous!” Sheler said. “I’m a lighteyes of the fifth dahn! I’m cousin to the highlord himself and--” “Second option,” the general said, “is the hammer. We break your legs and arms, then hang you from the cliff by the ocean. You might last until the storm that way, but it will be miserable.”

Apparently, this asshole was caught robbing and murdering civilians, and also raping women (“a resistance is not what we caught you mounting.”). So I have zero sympathy for him.

Anyway, the third option is “the hog.” You get greased, and you wrestle a hog. Apparently, you don’t die if you do this. Of course, Lighteyed Shithead goes for that one, although I was hoping for the sword.

Oh. Sheler was in Amaram’s army. No wonder he’s a horrible person.

Obviously, the Herdazian general was too frightened to actually kill an Alethi officer. So they would humiliate him by making him wrestle a pig. They’d have a good laugh, then send him away smarting. Idiots. He’d come back with an army.

They chain him to a wall, douse him in oil, and then the fun starts.

“I’d say ‘good luck,’ boss,” the Herdazian soldier told Sheler as his companion ran off, “but I’ve got three marks on you not lasting a full minute. Still, who knows. When the general was chained down here, he got out in less.” The ocean started to churn. “Of course,” the soldier said, “the general likes this kind of thing. He’s a little weird.” The soldier dashed back up the bank, leaving Sheler locked in place, doused in pungent oil, and gaping as an enormous claw broke the surface of the ocean. Perhaps “the hog” was more of a nickname.

This is the best inversion of “chain a young woman to a beach for the sea monster to eat/ravish in a weird twisted rape metaphor” (I’ve. read papers on the sexual undertones of these myths)--”chain a sexual predator to the beach and take bets on whether he survives.”

Back over to Venli. She’s named her little spren Timbre, which is adorable, and I love it. It explores every corner of every room it’s allowed--it’s a little explorer. Just like Eshonai was.

Anyway, Venli is kept to a stormshelter outside of Kholinar, not allowed to leave. She wants to go explore the city. Venli has to tell Timbre to stay inside, because the Fused want to kill it and ones like it.

Meaning it almost certainly can be a Radiant spren. I love Timbre!

Venli rested her head on her arms. “I feel like a relic,” she whispered. “Already I seem like a cast-off ruin from a nearly forgotten day. Are you the reason I feel like that, suddenly? I only get this way when I let you out.”

Timbre starts to pulse to Pleading and Peace, as Venli thinks about Eshonai, and Demid. Everyone who worried about her ambition. Who died, in the end, because of her ambition.

“I’m the wrong one,” Venli said to Annoyance. “I can’t do this, Timbre. I can’t resist him.” Pleading. “I made this happen,” She said to Fury. “Don’t you realize that? I’m the one who caused all this. Don’t plead to me!”

Annoyance and fury at Timbre, or at herself?

But Timbre sticks to resolve, and--for the first time--we get a gendered pronoun--”she.” Hm.

Timbre hides under the bed from Everstorms ahhhh I love her so much.

Anyway, the Everstorm comes around every nine days--the Odium number again. Odium doesn’t like it when she closes the window during Everstorms.

How long can you keep being two people, Venli? She seemed to hear Eshonai’s voice. How long will you vacillate?

A good question, Ghost Eshonai. Anyway, Venli is now talking directly to Odium. He says she isn’t telling the story well enough, and as she speaks to him she is literally being burned apart. He threatens to destroy her if she keeps being distracted.

Yikes. Doesn’t sound like a nice boss, Venli. Not that we expected him to be. She wakes and her fingers are bleeding from how she’s clawed at the stones. Yikes. Timbre pulls her out of her horror by humming Peace, but Venli can’t hum it herself.

The wrong sister had died. The wrong sister lived. Venli had schemed to return their gods. This was her reward.

Ouch.

#oathbringer spoilers #stormlight archive liveblog #interludes #i love timbre #ghostbloods doing ghostthings #herald sighting

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