I think we are going to lose the contest in the next, like, five chapters.

But I think we will defeat Taravangium in the following chapters.

I think Dalinar will be in service to Odium, but somehow the shard of Odium is altered in some Mistborn spoilers, in some, like...

hero of ages way that the definition of the shard is, but is, is changed by the end of the book.

Welcome back to following note on a storm.

My podcast this week is episode two 66 and we're in interlude 17.

through chapter 128 entering at long last day 10 of wind and truth elliot how are you well can you believe it gentlemen i got a little bit of chills flip the page we did a little bit of reveal last week where we flipped the page and saw the the title header for for day 10 but here we are actually diving into day 10 part 10 of wind and truth it's taken us a mere nine months plus to get here and we are here and i'm ready for it i started my pre -release chapters over a year ago i believe so here we are paul how are you magnificent as elliot said it's kind of like chills worthy flipping into day 10 seeing the huge list of names of point of views we're going to be getting getting started getting started getting into some big stuff right away we finally finally made it to day 10 at the date of recording it is august 21st we started this book formally reading and recording in november right because we did it before the release the final week in november yeah so in november so It's not too far from a year long, and we've still got some pages left.

I believe we have five episodes after this week.

Paul, do we have a patron?

We do, we do.

Thank you for mentioning it.

We have a brand new ardent in the midst.

I get used to saying surgeon by default, but an ardent.

I would like to say a big shout out and thank you to Savannah.

Savannah, thank you so much for your support.

as all of our supporters a big thank you but yeah welcome savannah um we have many uh spearmen and surgeons in the crew we need some ardents so we're grateful to have you on board so to break out the fine china for savannah yeah wait hold on yeah i forgot i i was gonna say i'm desperately running out of vessels i took flowers out of this vase moments before Coming to record.

I pulled flowers out, realized this is not a very practical cup.

It's a very tiny little opening at the top.

And rinsed it out and put water in there.

So I will be drinking sparingly tonight.

But thank you so much for your support, Savannah.

The flowers hopefully will be fine until after recording.

I just have this mental image of Paul moments before recording.

desperately searching through his house like bilbo baggins trying to find some sort of cup anything that could hold water for the for the evening so you know it's really funny that i noticed tonight i walked into my kitchen and i opened a cabinet to look for a cup i did not open the cabinet with the cups in it like we have our cabinet that has our cups and mugs and That one's run dry for months now, right?

Yes, that's been gone for a long time.

I opened the pantry cabinet looking for an empty container or something and found nothing.

Turned around and on the edge of our kitchen I see this little flower vase and I was like, there it is.

I know I haven't used that one at least.

I bet there is.

I'm really talking about my cups a lot here.

I do believe that there's probably a cup in my cupboard that I have not used, but it's like a staple cup, and I'm like, oh, I have to have used that at some point.

I've been too afraid to repeat a cup that I haven't bothered trying or bothering to go look back and find every cup that I've used ever.

So I saw this and I'm like, I definitely have not used this flower vase.

I know that for a fact I have not used this flower vase.

So that's where we are.

Thank you, Savannah.

Thank you.

Thank you, Savannah.

All right.

Elliot, can you give us a summary of interlude 17 into day 10?

Yeah, I got this.

Okay.

Two interludes, 17 and 18.

to bridge us from day nine into day 10.

The first one is in the point of view of Dayeno the Mink, the Herdazian general we've seen a few times.

He has been delivered back to Herdaz to go free his people.

It does not go well.

He doesn't even make it to the town.

He gets captured.

He's at his execution.

And then things start to go a little bit crazy and a giant great shell the size of a city appears.

Yeah.

And that's the fade to black moment.

Anyway, well, it's really just trying to bust the budget of whatever adaptation takes them.

It's like, he's really just trying to dump it on them.

Let's see if they can animate this.

Chapter interlude 18 is in my notes.

I just wrote odium.

It's just kind of odium rambling.

I don't even really have anything to say about it.

It's just odium doing odium things.

Chapter 126 starts with Dalinar in the spiritual realm, kind of wrapping up the last of the honor tapes or whatever we're calling them, the Tanavast reveal.

Gets a little bit more information about Gavilar, manages to make it out of the...

spiritual realm, gets back to the physical realm, has a little bit of a reconciliation moment with the Stormfather, who we've now learned is Tanavast, basically.

We jump over to Adolin real quick, and he is...

Really thinking hard about Dalinar.

He kind of spread out across a couple of these chapters, is really wrestling kind of with Maya in conversation with her about Dalinar and himself.

And can he accept himself?

Can he accept Dalinar?

All these things.

There's a little bit of that in 126.

End of 126, though, is Kaladin and Zeth gearing up for the final push to the final monastery, the Bondsmith Monastery, and they buy a wagon off of random people.

And then head on.

Chapter 127 is some more Adolin and Maya and Scar and Drahe arrive as a small amount of reinforcements.

And then Yonagon cooks up the grand idea of, oh, I'm a...

Thief, I know how to sneak into the palace.

Let's go stealth mode and let's sneak into the palace and see if we can occupy the throne room at the key moment when the contest happens so that we will be in control of Azir at the time and win the battle for control.

So they're going to try that.

Dalinar is back and now kind of stealing himself for the contest.

And he gets a little mini therapy session from Wit and Wit tells him a story.

about the lumberman's son, which I didn't really understand, but I'm excited to talk about.

And then chapter 128, we see Kaladin and Nail.

Nail drops, well, we kind of knew some of this, but Nail is telling us more about Ishar and what he's done.

Apparently he has this idea to build an army to fight Odium.

And that army is supposed to be made up of human fused.

Hope you're ready for that one.

And Kaladin has not on my bingo board.

No, no human fuse was not expecting that like humans.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We'll talk about it.

We'll talk about it.

He shows, he shows weird.

And Kaladin has some really good things to say, kind of back towards Nell, some really good discourse there.

A little bit more of Wit's therapy session story is mixed into 128.

And then we end with Adolin and Yonagon sneaking into the palace, and they realize that it's a trap.

It's a trap!

And that's it.

Okay.

The best interlude we've ever received.

Interlude 17.

What do you guys think?

DNO.

The mink.

Oh, I have to ask for two words first.

Oh, yes.

My bad.

Paul, two words.

All right.

My two words are unique and step.

They kind of go together, but kind of not necessarily.

You cut out their unique and what?

Unique and step.

Step.

Okay.

Part of that reference is for Dalinar stepping up to the Contest of Champions and where we're headed with that.

And also, you could extrapolate that a bit with Yonagon stepping up and things like that and all the things going on here.

Unique is the bigger word.

That's the one that came to my head right away.

And that is for the story with the lumberman's son that Hoyt gives.

I really, really liked this one.

I thought it was really fun.

And I could just, you know, we've been with these characters for so long that I feel like I just can pick up on what they like and don't like a lot.

Which sounds odd to say because they're fictional characters.

But I feel like Hoyt had a blast doing his story therapy session with Dalinar.

Because Dalinar sits and thinks through this whole thing and comes away with a logical conclusion.

And I just feel like Hoyt had a blast with that.

I don't know what to say about it.

The whole takeaway.

We can talk about it now.

I have more to say.

We'll let it go.

But unique is largely tied to the takeaway Talanar has about us all kind of being our own person.

And that's what provides people with a lot of their strength and value, I guess, is being your own person.

But with that story, the lumberman's son, I really enjoyed it.

I thought it was a lot of fun.

Elliot?

I have two words.

I'm going to fit them into a sentence, but the sentence is not really my words.

There's two words in the sentence that are the two words.

It's not cheating.

Just go with it.

You better wow me.

You'll be fine with this.

You'll be fine with this as soon as I say it.

The two words go together, so I got to stick some conjoining words.

I'm just going to say it.

The words are the cost of peace.

So the two words there are obvious.

cost and peace.

I'm referencing Kaladin here.

I mentioned this in my summary a little bit.

In response to Nail, Kaladin has a great line about there are some things we should not do even for the right reasons.

And Zeth and Nail are kind of pushing him on.

Well, shouldn't there be someone who does the terrible things so that everyone else has peace?

East and Calvin rebuts it really well.

I think it says there are some costs we should not pay.

I think he's absolutely right.

I'm really excited to talk about it and we'll get to it in chapter one 28.

And yes, my senses is fine.

You can't rag me.

I give you, I give you pass on the sentence.

Whenever you first write it, I thought you were going to be, well, I thought it was, I thought your words were going to be the end of.

I just.

the cost of peace.

No, you're absolutely not excused.

Even though it's a great scene, you don't get five, six words just because you need some words.

The cost of peace.

Come on, Trevor.

That's four.

Alright, re -edit it.

Go back.

Cost peace.

Thank you.

Great.

We're cutting all the rest of that from the episode.

Okay.

Who would have thought?

Go ahead.

I was going to say, so now are we talking about DNO?

Yes.

Who would have thought that as we got closer to day 10, the less relevant our interludes would have gotten, not more.

Who guessed that?

I did not.

And I think, honestly, I think I have one negative comment to say in this episode.

One negative comment, if I'm allowed that.

And I think it's the DNO interlude.

There are some neat things.

And I wonder if this is going to come back.

Because we do end on kind of a crazy scene.

But I don't know.

This is a negative comment.

Not because it's not good or it's not supposed to be there.

But because I was expecting to flip into interludes for day 10.

I'm flipping metaphorically because I'm doing the audio book.

I flip forward and I was expecting this day 10 interlude 17 to be something like either groundbreaking or question answering or profound or something like that.

It was both in both literal senses.

I was mostly joking.

I will defend this interlude for all those who want me to listening.

But finish your sentence, Paul.

Okay.

I guess I wasn't expecting this Deanna scene, and so he's just basically trying to worm his way out or delay his execution by distracting and asking for a mallet and kind of questioning the people and whatnot.

And then this crazy great show comes out at the end.

I'm assuming that's the important thing.

Obviously, that's the big thing, and we're like, whoa, okay, big great show.

but I guess I, I, this is not the picture I had in my head.

So how dare brain did not match exactly what I was expecting.

Flipping the page here into the inner lids for day 10.

No, this fits perfectly.

And I'll explain why, but Elliot, which side do you land on of the city?

Well, I'm a bash it a little bit and then you can maybe try and save it.

Yeah, go for it.

I assumed you would.

Did anybody else get like captain Jack Sparrow vibes?

Yes.

I was going to say it if you didn't.

It's a mix of Captain Jack Sparrow and Robin Hood.

Yeah, it's not good, though.

It's cheesy.

It's cheesy.

It bordered into super cheesy for me.

It was silly.

It was good.

It's what I expect from an interlude.

I actually don't have any issue with this kind of thing popping up in an interlude for real.

But if you're about to try and tie this together into the grander theme of the book, I might make fun of you a little bit.

Well, not the grander theme.

No, no.

Okay.

Well, maybe.

So here's the whole point of the interlude.

Yes, it's silly.

Yes, it's crazy that this massive great shell that we've never seen before pops up.

It's highlighting the fact that there really is nothing else besides the contest.

All of our side quests have failed.

All of them.

The only thing we have is the contest.

That's the point here.

I grant you that.

I guess.

I agree.

And while that is true, while it is true that all of our other attempts have failed and not panned out, I will refute a little bit that we only have the Contest of Champions.

Obviously, it comes down to that specifically with Dalinar, but...

They say at the start of this book, the wind tells Kaladin that his quest may be even more important than the Contest of Champions.

And also the pointings to Shallan and Renarin and company with Baedo Mishram as well.

That's me being nitpicky.

I know what you mean.

The essence of what you're saying is pretty spot on.

I think that's fair to say.

As far as territorial.

goes yes we still have the shin of our thing going on yes we still have the spiritual realm thing going on but it we're highlighting the fact that we're not gonna like hair daz is gone is the point here and we're not gonna go live in exile in hair daz if we lose the contest like that we're all in on the contest here that's the point it does I think you're right.

It does.

It does set the stakes, I guess, for what we're about to head into.

But I think I, I think I just lost it a little bit on the final line of the inner, literally the last sentence.

Cause it's so cheesy.

That's a finale.

Right.

Okay.

So he sees this great shell thing.

It's the size of a city, which that's super cool.

Super epic.

I want to see that.

I'm imagining what that looks like.

Super cool.

And then the mink who opened.

And it's like, Yeah, I could have gotten out of that, you know, kind of thing.

And then all of a sudden now he's dropping, you know, the comedic relief lines through me a little bit.

And then the irony of what he's saying there is not lost on me in the slightest.

We are entering into the finale of the entirety of Stormlight Era 1.

And how does Brandon set that up for us?

A character literally saying, well, that's a finale.

A little on the nose.

Right.

It's not funny to you?

It's cheesy.

Would it make you feel better if Hoid said it?

Yes.

Okay, I have to add.

So this obviously, I mean, Brandon certainly has this Herdazian thing down because it feels very much like a loping scene.

You could interchange Lopin into here.

I bet even I feel like.

I'm sure it wasn't, but I feel like there could have even been a draft somewhere where Lopin is actually the one in the scene.

And like he could have kept most of the dialogue the exact same.

Maybe throw in like a one armed joke or something would have been the difference.

But yeah, you had to swap characters because Lopin couldn't get both his hands out from behind his back or something.

Something like that, even though he has both arms now.

So correct.

Anyways.

But and this is funny because I need to look and do like a deep dive on the difference between the writing of Lopin and the Herdazians and Wayne from Mistborn.

Personally, I really like Wayne and I really struggle with Lopin as like comedic relief.

Lopin has always felt cheesy to me and minor.

Spoilers for Mistborn Era 2.

Not actually story spoilers, but things about Wayne.

I think it's hilarious that he's crazy rich and has no idea what money is.

He keeps doing stupid things and it's being massively successful like business ventures and the invention of sports and things like that.

I think that's really funny in his dialogue is.

I don't know.

The Herdazians have been a bit much for me.

so so i i agree with ellie i think it kind of lost me when maybe it shouldn't have maybe i'm being mean i'd be curious to know what other people think about it but this this interlude lost me a little bit i feel like i feel like it was fairly cool i was invested and i don't know it just kind of cut cut the wrong way a bit and of course we're nearing the finale and so i'm more on edge about everything you know and so I don't know.

Maybe I'll look back.

I probably won't care in a week, but we just read this, so the thoughts are fresh on my mind.

If there was a modern -day Stormlight era, you would get a D .N .O.

the Mink comic book series.

100%.

It'd be D .N .O.

and his Grand Adventures, Captain Jack Sparrow -esque.

And I'd be here for it.

I like pterodactyls, personally.

And they're chowta.

That's why you're not funny, Trevor.

That's so hurtful.

I'm sorry.

All right.

Interlude 18.

Yeah, Odium's ready.

Next chapter.

I'm going to be honest.

I listened to this interlude twice.

I listened to all these chapters, like this whole reading.

Two times.

Both times, I listened to Interlude 18 without really recognizing it at all.

Like, literally nothing.

Yeah, Odium is ready.

I think that's a perfect, succinct summary.

Chapter 126.

Intro.

Huge list of names we're going to get a perspective from.

And we kick it off with Dalinar.

I did.

notice some weird like time frame shenanigans going on that the beginning of 126 is actually before interlude 18 in the timeline because in in interlude 18 terranian is like oh there's dalinar getting popped out in your theory thank goodness and then in chapter 126 we back up like 30 seconds see the last of the movie and then get spat out in your theory and i was like we couldn't put that In 125, but whatever.

All right.

Dalinar's back in Earth Hero.

He has learned, I guess, all that he needs to know about the contest.

He's learned enough to know that he can't win.

That's the conclusion he comes to, is that the contest is still worth doing, but we need to have a plan B.

We need to actually beat Odium and not just play this contest.

is the conclusion he comes to is it this is a genuine question is it we need a plan b or is it more of a fatalistic we're going to lose this challenge but the right thing is to do it anyway well it's it's both it's i'm going to do this challenge because it's the right thing to do but this doesn't beat odium and i need to think about how to beat odium like he talks about that with the storm father the storm father's like i know you can't fight him and it's like down there's like dude i was watching i i get it i do i get it we still need to figure out how to beat him because this contest isn't going to solve anything for us and the the consequence of not beating odium like let's say we even somehow win the challenge we still haven't saved roshar we've we can save the cosmere This comes up a couple of times throughout these sections of downer kind of recognizes we've succeeded in containing odium.

And regardless of the outcome, we think we're going to be able to maintain that.

The problem is the repercussions for Roshar specifically could get catastrophic and will probably continue to be forever.

Unless we can somehow deal with Odium permanently is where I feel like Dalinar kind of gets to here.

Correct.

And this goes into a little bit at 127, but it's relevant.

Adolin actually has an interesting line in his mental dialogue.

He's thinking about his dad throughout these chapters ever since the end of day nine.

He's been thinking about Dalinar.

And at the beginning of 127, he thinks, man if dalinar loses it's literally going to be your theory versus the world minus dalinar or your theory minus dalinar versus the world and then he's well if and then he dismisses it like oh he's not going to lose though he's down he's dalinar he he does finally have his faith back in his father he just needs to go tell him that um but that made me think Back to, what, chapter seven of this book, of the King Kaladin discussion that we had, where before Kaladin goes on his quest, Dalinar shows Kaladin the will of the tower, that if me and Navani get knocked out or out, whatever, before we go to the spiritual realm here, I want you to inherit your Thiru and the Knight's Radiance specifically.

So when Adolin made that distinction of if we lose, because Thalen has dropped off, we've lost Azir, maybe, and Herodaz is gone, the Shattered Plains are gone, because we've lost all this territory.

It's going to genuinely be Urithiru versus the world.

I might be on the prediction train that we might lose this, and it might be Urithiru versus the world.

to end the book, which is crazy to me.

You muted yourself again.

I did, my bad.

It's been a possibility, I think, this whole book for me, that we may not have Roshar at the end of this book.

So I wouldn't be too surprised by this Urathiru versus the world.

scenario at the end.

We've already lost Garbronth entirely, so we already...

Roshar is going to look different.

Even if nothing else gets destroyed, you've lost Garbronth.

That's a big...

That's a lot of...

That's a big deal.

But yeah, going into this, it is funny because I feel like I've spent the whole book thinking, how is Dalinar going to lose?

Which I don't like.

I like when we win.

I like when the good guys triumph over evil and Odium is kept at bay and all these things.

But they've certainly set it up to be like, well, Dalinar, you're going to lose, but that's even part of what Hoid says, I think.

He's like, you're going to lose, but you're going to show up.

It's better to show up than to no -show.

um in his in his story but i don't know if the twist is going to be he somehow wins i don't know i i i don't know what to make of this i guess it's full send on prediction time i i do have something to say but elliot do you have anything to add before i get on a soapbox just just to say that i too am afraid of losing or catastrophe or whatever that looks like because i feel like a lot of the foreshadowing is pointing that way Our literal chapter headers on the page are falling apart to nothing.

There's so much that is pointing to catastrophe as the result of this.

So where is this going to go?

I don't know.

Well, you're about to ask me where it's going to go, and I'm going to have to give you a prediction.

Well, yeah, I'll throw it to you after this prediction that I'm about to make.

I think we are going to lose the contest in the next, like, five chapters.

But I think we will defeat Taravangian in the following chapters.

I think Dalinar will be in service to Odium, but somehow the shard of Odium is altered in some, Mistborn spoilers, in some Hero of Ages way.

The definition of the shard is changed by the end of the book.

I don't know...

exactly the format of that i'm not really going to guess but i think the shard of odium does not look the same by the end of this book even though we lose the contest that's my prediction i i kind of like that i don't think i can refute that it could i could see those pieces falling together for sure and it might that that could be a way for us to get a fantasy story happy ending potentially, while also having the catastrophe that it feels like everything has been pointing to.

So you could get kind of all of that wrapped into the Sander Lynch of this book, the climax.

Do you want our predictions too?

Yes, of course.

I'll fire mine and then I'll pass it off to you, Paul.

Final chips on the table.

We've come so far.

Oof, we have.

We have.

This is big.

I feel like I should be more confident in my prediction based on all that we know.

Right.

We're only like 60 pages from some big reveals and we still don't know.

Like you said, the next five chapters I think are going to be massive.

So what exactly is going to happen here?

Man, I feel like I should know better.

I think.

So in chapter 126, Dalinar makes one final try to ascend to the Shard of Honor.

And it rejects him.

And the honor shard says, nope, sorry, humans break oaths.

Won't take you.

I still think something's going to happen that causes the power of honor to recognize that Dalinar has become the most honorable human out there.

And maybe that's something like lose the contest, but accepts, holds up his end of the deal and accepts servitude under Odeon, like something big like that.

And the power of honor goes, oh, wow, you just kept an oath.

And oh, my goodness, look at all these other times in the story.

You kept oaths.

And there's.

No other being out there who's going to match that as well as what you've done.

I'm not going to be able to find someone that's better than that.

I'll finally accept you.

And then what that means at that point, I don't know.

I don't know what that sets us up for.

Do we get an Honor versus Odium showdown where they try to fight it out like Tanavas tried in the past?

I don't know.

But I think the surprise is going to be Dalinar.

does somehow still get the Shard of Honor.

I think that was awesome, Elliot.

I think that's genius.

I've even had the thought running with that a little bit.

I wonder if Dalinar going into the service of ODM is what Honor's power needs.

to confirm that he would not break an oath because he would be bound by said whatever.

That's pretty sneaky, if that's the case.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, I've been wrestling with this quite a bit, obviously.

It's only played to the last year of my life.

Yeah, I'm pretty convinced we will not be winning the Contest of Champions.

The question is, where does that leave us?

My gut reaction is that we will lose and things will look desperate and bad, but there being the...

You know how we've had our archways, our chapter headers degrading and crumbling over time?

I'm wondering if it's essentially like everything has crumbled, but there's going to be the glimmer of hope.

Of someone beginning to rebuild.

Or something along that line.

Of like.

Things are destitute.

And we're not ending this book.

Walking away victorious.

Odium is no more.

And Roshar is safe.

But we are.

Essentially defeated.

But there is hope we're holding on to.

And then that hope.

Is what we will build off of.

In the back half.

I think that.

Makes a crazy.

Epic.

Ten book arc.

That's not the happiest ending for book five.

So I'm hesitant.

To really believe.

That would happen.

Like full stop.

And everything.

My prediction for a long time.

Before we started the book.

Was Dalinar was going to lose.

The contest.

And from that position.

either find a way to impact the greater cosmere or savor shah or something as a servant of odium but that was under the my guess also that this contest would be happening much earlier in the book that could still be the case we just don't have time to see much afterward unless like next chapter is like this contest of champions and then we've got this figured out so um yeah so Final guess is I do think we're going to lose the Contest of Champions.

I do also think that Honor, someone is going to hold Honor.

Of course, frontrunner guesses Dalinar, but someone's going to.

And like Trevor said, it's been pointing a lot lately to this idea almost that if you change Odium or held two shards, as we said with Mistborn Era 1, could change things.

But then I feel like we're literally getting rinse and repeat of Mistborn Era 1.

And I don't think that's how this is going to go.

I don't think we're going to see that.

I stick with my prediction that it's going to be destitute, but a glimmer of hope of rebuilding Roshar.

Elliot, what about the honor monster?

Are we going to see the sentient honor power monster come back?

You mentioned that a couple episodes ago.

That's a different path that's potentially still on the table.

It was mentioned again in 126 that it's coming alive and watching us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I've branched away from that in my...

guessing of what's going to happen but you you're right i think there are still some threads that could come together to form that picture which would be the power of honor coalescing into some investiture monster that's not supposed to be because it's supposed to be paired up with a vessel kind of thing i i don't feel like we're setting that up anymore but maybe that's the twist i don't know we'll have to find out uh anything else on the down on our stuff we've got a lot of adel and stuff to talk about but What about the therapy session?

Do you guys have more on the therapy session?

I do have more on the therapy session.

So I want to talk a little bit about this story that Hoyt shares.

The story of the lumberman's son.

He sets up this story where it's apparently a true story, right?

That Hoyt tells way, way, way, way, way thousands and thousands of years ago.

People were wondering if a lowborn could learn i guess the things that the nobles know i'm summarizing or paraphrasing this quite a bit and essentially the he has this lumberman son has these tests to do and can't complete them but the last one is to create an original an original or unique piece of poetry and this is the whole point that hoyt gets at that there is nothing he essentially says there's nothing new under the sun there's humans have been around before them he said there were dragons and then before them so other stuff like there's basically nothing there you can't really come up with anything original um but what makes it original is you being the one to do it.

And I thought about this quite a bit, because I'm like, okay, well, I'm like, if two people back -to -back read the same thing, there's really not going to be much difference.

Right?

That was the first logical jump that I made in my brain.

But then I thought about it more, and of course what Hoyt is getting at is we're all unique and individual.

There is no one else like you.

And there will never be someone else literally just like you.

There's lots of people who are similar, have same interests and things like that, even look similar.

But you are always going to be individual.

And he kind of leaves Dalinar with this message.

And I have a feeling that Dalinar is going to pull from this in a really epic, awesome way.

Maybe if something does.

happened good with the Contest of Champions.

It may come from this.

Yeah, so it's almost like half baked a little bit, or maybe three quarters.

Hoyt paints this picture of originality and uniqueness in each person as a beautiful thing, and Dalinar is like, that's awesome, and that's profound, and I like that.

But then they both look at each other and like, but that's not going to win you this contest.

You're still screwed.

But I did happen to like this.

It wasn't maybe as cool visually as like The Girl Who Looked Up or The Wanderer's Tale or some of the other stories that Hoyt has brought.

But I found it refreshing because it was direct.

Like Hoyt is trying to pull the Brandon treatment of like, I don't have any meaning in these stories.

I just share them and you derive the meaning, but they talk about a deliberate meaning together.

And I find it really refreshing to, to, to read it, to take part in.

I agree.

I will admit I gave up hope on a Hoyt therapy session.

I, it dawned on me about day seven.

I was like, Oh man.

nobody's hanging out with hoid to give a therapy session to except for like lift so maybe we can get a lift therapy session and then literally at the 11th hour we got a therapy session we we got a mini one at the very beginning with calvin calvin's not sure if he's going to go on the journey right and what is like hey practice the flute well yeah we didn't tell him a story did he tell him he doesn't tell him a story but he he has I want my picture book, like flip book story.

Okay, okay.

We hadn't seen that yet.

The Dog and the Dragon.

Correct.

I want my Wander Sale pop -up book.

You do get the Lumberman Isaac Stewart, by the way.

Dragon's still wet.

Are you listening?

Wander Sale pop -up book, please.

Yeah.

Thankfully, you did get that, Trevor.

On day 10, the last possible day, you got it.

Thankfully.

Yeah, no, I, yeah, I mean, I feel like if I could keep bringing up things about it, I'll do my best to move forward.

I absolutely, like, Dog and the Dragon was, like, my favorite part of, maybe not my favorite overall, because there are so many good parts in book four as well.

But, like, absolutely loved it.

Loved that there was, like, a clear takeaway at the end.

It was just very refreshing, very fun.

Absolutely loved it.

Fun visuals.

And so I'm really like nerding out about it.

One other thing that I have to add at the end is they are like, well, you're still not going to win this whole contest thing, but you know, this is a good sentiment to take with you.

Hoyt is very sincere at the end of this.

He looks at Delanor and says, I'm glad you are the one doing this.

He admits that he does not know how this is going to go.

but that also Odium does not necessarily know how this is going to go.

They cannot see what lies ahead.

And that's quite scary.

But Hoyt, y 'all could probably quote it more directly than I can.

He says something along the lines of, like, you won't be going up there a man or something, but as a king, you'll be going up those steps.

Right.

As a king.

And that was part of my reason for the...

step word that i used um of one he's physically in there's the the imagery of him physically going up these steps but also it's just like the next step that delanor has to take they all wow i'm just thinking more from the scene they also talk about destination we've had this whole journey before destination and it's what you do on the path to destination that is most important journey before destination But now they're like, okay, but we're at the destination now.

We're here.

That's also very important.

And yeah, I feel like, to me, this was the most impactful part of this whole episode.

I absolutely loved this scene.

Funny enough, my other scene that I tout as my favorite in this book is what you mentioned, Elliot, of the Kaladin Hoid mini therapy session at the start of the book.

It still sticks with me, and I think it's so good.

So when Hoid gets sincere, those are like my favorite scenes in this whole Stormlight story.

It's so good.

We need some genuine Spren or sincerity Spren.

Exactly.

When Hoid locks in.

Real moment Spren.

Yeah, whenever he locks in and stops dilly -dallying.

Oh, it's so good.

Dalinar even says that in the scene when he first pops up.

He's like, Wit, no more jokes.

Let's get real.

And Wit's basically like, okay, you want real?

Let's do it.

Exactly.

I love it.

Speaking of locking in, Adolin and Ionagon have come to the conclusion that they've lost until...

Yonagon thinks, wait a minute.

Well, it's actually Adolin's idea first.

Adolin thinks, wait, all we need to do is sit you on the throne at the moment, at the exact second.

We need to have a stopwatch.

Even if we're surrounded by enemies, if we push you onto the throne and sit you there at the moment, then we win.

And Yonagon's like, great.

I'm an ex -thief.

I can get us in there.

my favorite part of this whole exchange over these three chapters is the secret back, back gate for like the, the smugglers.

Like, well, what's her name?

The, I should know her name by now.

See in the book five, the Yonagon.

Yeah.

Nora, Nora turns to, uh, Yonagon after Yonagon says, Oh, there's a secret back gate.

We can walk in the smugglers use.

And Nora's like, No, there's not.

How dare you?

And Yonagon's like, no, trust me.

There is.

I'll show you.

That was my favorite exchange.

The whole Yonagon sequence was very good.

I agree.

That was really funny.

I have to say, all I've been able to think about with this whole premise of all we need to do is have you on the throne and we win is there's a game I grew up playing.

Such an excellent game, such an excellent series.

I don't know if either of y 'all ever played it, but hopefully some of our listeners have played Fire Emblem at some point in your life.

Essentially, in Fire Emblem, you have a series of chapters going through this whole story, and about half the time, at least in the older games, your objective, effectively, you have this battlefield, right?

You're trying to win.

And half the time, your objective is only to seize the throne.

And then you win.

Does not mean you have to defeat all the enemies or things like that.

All you have to do, if you can get your main character onto that throne, boom.

It's like nobody else is there.

The war is over.

You've touched the throne.

You've claimed the land.

You're all done.

and I could not stop thinking about this of like all they need to do is by this certain hour Yonagon simply needs to be on this throne that's it like it doesn't matter if everyone else is like if they're literally about to die two seconds after he just needs to have his butt in the seat like and we cool you know and I just thought it was funny I couldn't think about that I'm sure surely someone knows what I'm talking about uh with the fire emblem reference but yeah could not stop thinking about it the whole time i wish i had more fire emblem references to give you but i don't i apologize that's okay i'm quite sorry about that i want to talk about maya they maya and adeline have a back and forth about adeline you know being worthless and maya's like no you're not worthless you're doing great work here And then Maya's like, oh, I'm worthless because we lost the city anyway.

And then Alen's like, no, you're doing great work here.

And it made me think, okay, obviously this is going somewhere.

Where is this going?

What was Maya doing?

We still don't know.

Any ideas?

It does feel rather pointless at this point.

Almost.

Brandon is a very good writer.

He knows what he's doing here.

So there's a reason.

There is a reason why this happened.

Maybe we're going to get a big reveal.

Maybe there's something else.

But it almost felt like a plot line that got forgotten.

That Maya's heading off to save the day and bring the cavalry, and then there's no cavalry.

There's no...

save that needs to be made.

I don't know what's going on here.

How many honor sprints is she going to bring?

What's the over -under?

Two?

Alright, over -under on two, Paul.

More or less than that.

I think it's going to be under.

One honor sprint.

Yeah, I think it's going to be one honor sprint.

Notam, that's it.

Yeah, well, sorry, not including Notam, if we're counting that as Maya brought.

I think there's going to be one honor spren and it's going to bond with...

I think it's going to bond with Yonagon.

There we go.

And he's going to fly up to the throne and sit on top of it.

He's going to fly to the...

Yes, exactly.

Or either that or like the...

Yeah, something.

He'll have the teleportation one or whatever and teleport right onto the throne at the last second.

Something like that.

I was trying to think about, could she have a herald?

Didn't our herald that was hanging out with the honor, didn't he get captured?

Like, he's not there anymore?

Who?

Kalak?

Yeah, that guy.

He was chilling with the honor spend, right?

Paul's a big Kalak fan.

What happened to Kalak, Paul?

I was going to say, I think the last time we've seen him was in that interlude or early chapter with Felt.

Yeah.

Our first interlude, yes.

Literally, that's the last.

See, see.

Okay, not to go back and rag on D 'Anno again, but why aren't we getting an update on that?

No, no, no, no.

Instead of D 'Anno being like, can you use a mallet?

I didn't think this would be D 'Anno defense hour, but here we go again.

No, D 'Anno is an important character.

Oh my gosh.

Much more important than Kalak, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kalak's just the sleazy guy in the background who doesn't want any responsibilities in his entire life.

Okay, tell that to, again, to Nail's character, who's been the worst character so far, and now he's trying to help us for good.

And, you know, why couldn't we have a situation like that with Kalak or some kind of connection?

We could have.

No, we could have.

No, no, no.

Kalak was like, hey, I'll give you two words of advice, and then you go off and do your quest.

I'm not helping.

He could have helped.

I agree.

Then he got kidnapped.

Instead, he's kidnapped by the Ghostbloods.

Kidnapped, and that's it.

That's the last we've seen of him, and I'm quite sad, because it's been quite a horror.

That's fair.

It's been a Herald -centric book, way more than I expected.

And Kalak gets abducted, and that's the end of it.

And I'm like, man.

He was given no chance.

No chance to come back.

Anyways.

But yes, that's where Kalak is.

It's a shame you reminded me.

I'm going to be honest.

I don't even remember where we left off before you mentioned Kalak because I just got so triggered.

Elliot was wondering what on earth we could have gotten from Lasting Integrity that we haven't already gotten.

That's fair.

Okay, yes.

Yep.

Yeah, Rafa, I guess.

Yeah.

So anyways, Yonagon will be a Night Radiant, and that's what's going to save the day here.

I think it'll be one of the Azish guys that we've been hanging out with.

Either Gazamal or the other guy.

I don't remember their names.

Kolat?

Or am I making that up?

No.

Oh!

Kolat's the turn to Sidewind Runner from Blastruck.

Yes, I've been thinking about that.

But, well, they mentioned...

I don't remember it from the last book, personally.

I remember it from earlier in this book, because they talk about it, right?

Yeah.

Because he's a Light Eyes, and his friend's like, I actually don't like Light Eyes, and he took that really personally.

But, he had this...

resolution moment with Adolin, like not that long ago about it.

And so it's probably not going to be Colas.

Yeah.

He was like, I'm essentially, he said, I'm happy being single.

Essentially.

That's what he was saying.

I'm working on myself.

He's working on himself right now, which is fine.

And I think that was a great little conclusion that ended the situation ship with his winter under spread.

Yeah, exactly.

Speaking of, do y 'all think that we're going to end the book with Kaladin and Syl falling in love?

No, I don't want to predict this.

I predicted yes, and I'm mad about it, but I think it's going to be a yes.

I'm calling it now.

No.

There's one too many head -on -the -shoulder scenes.

for me there there are there have been a lot okay well let me refresh this book one is one is too many that's not what i meant there are one too many to for me to think that that's not happening that there have been so many scenes that i think it is happening that's what i meant yeah forward about this book i i think that might be a not so subtle attempt to try and twang our heartstrings a little bit in that one of the two of them is not going to survive and it's going to be meant to be sadder than it would have been because we've fed this little bit of and there's more to their relationship oh no one of them dies and that is of the two yeah it's not caledon I think it's Syl.

It's got to be Syl.

If I had to put my bromes on it, I would say Syl.

You want to know something?

I don't know if it's sad or logical or what, but I would be more relieved if that was the purpose than if it was they're going to fall in love.

I think they will be separated, but not dead.

Change their Facebook status to It's Complicated?

Correct.

No, I think Kaladin still will confess her love, unfortunately, and then Kaladin will be locked on Braze as New Herald or whatever, and then they're separated by distance or whatever.

that'd be big that's not one that i had on my bingo card but that's pretty cool yeah we do still have this whole new herald thing going on yeah i'm i'm assuming that's gonna get i'm guessing that's gonna get dropped but i don't know we're still in day 10 and it's picking up not being dropped yeah i know i know but like we just picked it up recently so i don't know if it's a fake out right before the end or if it's like no this is really where we're headed so I can't get out of my head the Renar and Relain visions we had in, like, day two of the 12 people in Shinovar.

Oh, yeah.

Do you remember that one?

There's, like, five different windows, and, yeah, one of them, there's 12 different people, and one of them's definitely Syl, and they're all in Shinovar about to do something important.

And I can't help but think that's, like, New Heralds or something.

Man, how much is left of this book?

Because, like, we just read a lot of crazy stuff, and I'm getting more afraid of not getting the answers.

But we could also flip the next page, and it's like, everyone is dead.

Roshar is destroyed.

Everything is hopeless.

The end.

I'm in the scattershot mode of predictions where something's bound to hit if I just keep throwing them.

Keep throwing out ridiculous stuff and something is bound to land.

You're right.

If you spin me around with the pinata and I just start swinging, I'll hit it eventually.

Yeah, you're right.

There is one section in this Kaladin, Nail, Sil, Zeth conversation that I did want to focus in on for a second.

It was the passage that I got my two words from.

In chapter 128, Nail and Zeth are kind of arguing against Kaladin.

And Zeth is still kind of plagued by his past, right?

And he's kind of thinking, you know, is it okay for someone to have to do bad things if that means that we can arrive at peace?

And I think Zeth is ready to say yes to that.

And Nail is absolutely kind of pushing that.

Like, that's all I've ever done is do the bad things, trying to get to the place.

And Kaladin comes back at him.

And I think what he says was really good.

I liked it a lot.

I wanted to read it and get your guys' thoughts.

Here's what Kaladin says.

Let me read Zeth's question to him first, actually.

That'll give us better context.

Zeth said, but what if someone has to make the difficult choices and do terrible things so that others may have peace?

What peace?

Kaladin demanded, waving his hands.

You think people can live in peace knowing what it costs?

Look, I don't have all the answers.

I've told you that.

But this isn't a question of a few people needing to make a terrible choice.

That's a lie.

Everyone everywhere faces these kinds of decisions.

That's life.

What kind of world would it be if every time such a decision came up, we forced ourselves to sacrifice?

Not giving up our lives or time, but our integrity, our happiness, or our very identities.

I thought that hit the nail on the head for me.

I feel like we've come back to this question a lot of should you make the sacrifice in the short term for the long -term gain?

I mean, that's what Tarvanjan is all about, right?

That's been his mantra from day one is I can see the future.

I know what we have to do.

There's a greater good we're going to, and here's the 900 terrible things I have to do to get there.

I'm going to do every single one.

And I feel like Calvin's response there is really good.

At what cost?

When does the cost make it not worth it?

And I think what Calvin is getting at is that cost is.

It might be fairly low.

That you should not pay.

The earning of the piece.

By doing the bad things.

That that piece is not worth it.

I really like that section.

Yeah.

I liked it too.

It.

It plays directly off the.

The Austin debate.

Yeah it does.

Of.

At what point.

Do you.

Sacrifice your.

you know your identity your integrity to achieve peace in quotes so just the name of the book should be the cost of peace your four words not two from the beginning episode yeah i was i was actually wondering as i was putting some notes together on this if that could leak into my like takeaway theme for the entire book when we get to the end of it is that going to be a major take it Highly depends on what's coming up here.

I don't know.

We could see this go a different way.

But very much that question of, and in the Taravangian versus Jasnah with Fen, the question was kind of about safety and security.

What are you willing to do to guarantee your safety?

And I feel like the answer should have been, well, I'm not going to side with evil, even if it does mean safety.

And Kaladin here is kind of saying, I should not do wrong things.

Even if that leads to the path of peace.

Maybe I should accept not peace.

If it means doing the right things.

I think that's super applicable for me.

I can think of how that makes me think about my life.

Good stuff.

Yeah.

I agree.

Anything else?

I think that was it for me.

Okay.

We can reconvene next week with what will surely be the Contest of Champions.

I've been waiting for this for five years, and we're one week away.

Next week we have, hold that thought, chapters 129 through 131 from Tim Nodon.

So thanks for joining me, Paul and Millie.

Here we go.

Toodles.