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Wind and Truth Reread: Chapters 137-140
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Wind and Truth Reread
Wind and Truth Reread: Chapters 137-140
Major character arcs are resolved and victories achieved, but the fate of the world remains in doubt.
By Paige Vest, Lyndsey Luther, Drew McCaffrey
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Published on December 8, 2025
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Greetings and happy Monday, Cosmere Chickens! This week’s reread discussion is… a lot. We’re reaching the culmination of multiple character arcs, and plot arcs, and Cosmere connections. Mysteries are finally revealed, questions answered… It’s the Sanderlanche reaching its peak, so of course it’s a lot! Hold on to your storming seats, chickens!
The book has been out long enough that most of you will hopefully have finished, and as such, this series shall now function as a re-read rather than a read-along. That means there will be spoilers for the end of the book (as well as full Cosmere spoilers, so beware if you aren’t caught up on all Cosmere content).
Paige’s Commentary: Plot Arcs
Chapter 137 is titled “The Suckling Child” and, what have we here? A Mraize POV. I would normally be pretty meh about this, but considering how this POV ends… let’s dive in! Mraize faces off against Shallan, reasoning that since he can’t control her, he must kill her. He thinks she looks frightened, unsure. She seems hesitant, and then out of the blue, Pattern charges him. He easily deflects the spren who then rises up behind him. Realizing his mistake almost too late, he turns to find Shallan behind him. She’d been hidden beneath a Lightweaving of her spren.
She holds his glowing knife and somehow, he holds her empty one. He guesses that’s why she’d charged him—so she could swap knives. He drops his worthless knife and twists her wrist to force her drop his knife. When they both come up holding the knives again, he rams his blade into her chest while she stabs him in the gut… with the anti-Stormlight knife.
He doesn’t understand how she did it, but Shallan explains that she never swapped the knives—she just disguised them. When he’d dropped his knife to wrench what he thought was his knife from her, he’d essentially handed her the anti-Stormlight knife. In his fear, he draws in Stormlight to heal himself but it reacts with the anti-Stormlight and burns him up. Mraize is gone! Woohoo!
I found it interesting when Radiant kept asking if she should take over and Shallan refused. Shallan didn’t need someone to fight Mraize for her—she needed to face him herself so that she could trick him with her Lightweaving. She was fully capable of beating him all this time as the more experienced Lightweaver. Well done, Shallan. Very well done.
POV Shift!
Next, we see Venli on the Shattered Plains; El approaches, as the time for the contest has just passed. Leshwi is attuning joy. El comments on it before confirming that the contest has begun and he has secured the Shattered Plains as he was asked to do. Then Thude asks El to withdraw his forces until they can normalize diplomatic relations. And I am dying laughing!
Venli produces a treaty signed by Jasnah Kholin and El reads it quietly, asking how they managed to do it. An angry Fused states that they’ll just take the Plains from the listeners—and El outright kills him, with a storming Shardblade. As if that’s not surprising enough, he then calmly returns to the treaty and gives orders for his troops to retreat.
POV Shift!
We rejoin Dalinar at the top of Urithiru where Gavinor is still crying, frozen, his hands raised but no longer gripping Oathbringer as he’d been when he was preparing to strike down his grandfather. Dalinar is pondering his choices, and he does actually consider striking down Gavinor. But in doing so, he would become what Taravangian wants him to be. He sees that no matter what option he chooses, Taravangian wins. Dalinar even thinks that if he were to join Odium, maybe he could make all the cosmic war he’s going to wage less horrible. (Yeah, good luck with that…)
He asks the Stormfather for advice but alas, the spren has none. Dalinar can feel all the people in the tower, all of the people on Roshar… feel their wants and needs and loves and hopes and pain. And then, something wondrous happens.
Awareness blossomed in Dalinar. And there, at the crux of two storms, Dalinar Kholin understood.“Stormfather,” he said. “I know the Words!”
Chapter 138 is titled “The Burdens of Nine” and we’re right back with Shallan in the moments immediately after she kills Mraize. Radiant acknowledges that Shallan doesn’t need her anymore and just like that, Radiant, like Veil before her, reaches out and becomes part of Shallan instead of something separate.
Mraize’s Cryptic emerges from his corpse. Its pattern is damaged and it’s missing an arm. It can speak, and it’s quite put out with Shallan, who turns to go back to the room with the gemstone thinking that Mishram might be able to help the Cryptic and Iyatil’s Inkspren. That’s when she sees Renarin and Rlain with the gemstone raised above their heads as they prepare to break it.
POV Shift!
Nale is feeling the full brunt of the horrible things he’s done, the murders he’s committed. He is overwhelmed and knows that he’ll never escape this darkness.
POV Shift!
Syl is lost in the darkness as well, and she tries to get to Kaladin but isn’t able to. She feels so worthless, as if she’s never done anything that mattered. She hears Ishar ordering them to feel, as he takes a moment to think. She gets to the point where she doesn’t want to be anymore, to exist anymore. She’s beyond feeling pain, just… nothing, and it terrifies her.
POV Shift!
Szeth knows that he’s a failure, and he’s exhausted and overwhelmed by the darkness. He just wishes to rest. Nightblood asks him what’s wrong but he ignores the sword, thinking that everything is wrong and always will be.
POV Shift!
Kaladin is also overwhelmed by the darkness. But he’s been there before, hasn’t he? There, alone in the dark, feeling the weight of all of his failures and all of his inadequacies. He’s no stranger to this. So he does what he knows to do and looks up.
There he sees all of the paladins that he’s been, from the young man who volunteered for the Army to help his brother to the Squadleader and the Bridgeman, the Captain and the Radiant. He feels the full pain of the Heralds and in the midst of that darkness, he takes a breath and stands up. More woohoos!
Chapter 139, “Words,” picks right back up with Kaladin, who stands up to protect Syl and Szeth and even Ishar. Because that’s the man he wants to be. Ishar is rightfully stunned, even checking the cord that Connects him to Kaladin to be sure it hasn’t been severed somehow. Kaladin places himself between Ishar and Szeth, and it seems to help Szeth somewhat.
Ishar asks who he is and Kaladin, the silly bridge boy, says he’s just an old spear that won’t break. (Yes, I’m grinning quite stupidly here.) Kaladin asks Ishar if this horrible darkness is how he feels all the time, and Ishar confirms it, and that it is indeed awful. And then Kaladin quotes Wit.
“I will not lie,” Kaladin said, “and promise you that all future days will be warm. But Ishar, you will be warm again. And that is another thing entirely to promise.”
He goes on to say that he knows Ishar’s pain because he feels it too, and also that he knows that doesn’t lessen the other man’s pain. He thinks about how completely horrific this darkness is, worse than his worst days, and he realizes that he has to help the Heralds. Ishar threatens him but that don’t make no nevermind to Kaladin, who quietly speaks his Fifth Ideal, baby!
POV Shift!
The power of Honor surrounds Dalinar. He tries to make it see that he should be its vessel. It says that humans lie, and Dalinar tries to make it see that he will keep his oaths. Cultivation’s voice breaks in, telling him that it’s time, that he knows the words. Dalinar opens a perpendicularity and tells Honor:
“I understand you.”
Chapter 140 is titled “The Light We Kindle Ourselves.” We rejoin Kaladin to see the Wind accepting his words. Kaladin explodes with power, and… he’s still Connected to Ishar. The light from the Spiritual Realm surges down the Connection between Kaladin and Ishar and shoves Ishar back, expelling the darkness from him. At the same time, Kaladin senses the darkness being expelled from the other Heralds.
It wasn’t a symptom of their pain and suffering, but a remnant of Odium’s power that Ishar had taken up. Kaladin uses Nightblood to sever the Connections between Ishar and the others and as they rise, so do the Honorbearers. The Honorbearers who were made Fused by that darkness, and who still carry it. Or rather, who are still bound by it.
Kaladin notices a Connection between him and Nightblood. The sword fairly orders him to give it to Szeth. It says it will feed on Kaladin’s Stormlight rather than Szeth’s soul. So Kaladin tosses the sword over and Szeth takes it up.
Szeth realizes that Nightblood has learned the surges from the Honorblades and he asks if he can have his lashings back. Nightblood gives them to him happily… and they dance.
POV Shift!
Taravangian asks Dalinar what he’s doing, and Dalinar says he can’t defeat Odium as a man. Taravangian tells him that Honor won’t take him because he’s an oathbreaker. Honor hesitates, surrounding Dalinar but not entering him. Dalinar asks it what is wrong and it shows him a vision of Renarin and Rlain, and what they’re doing seems to make it reconsider.
POV Shift!
Renarin and Rlain are holding the gemstone high. Despite Shallan telling them to stop, they ask each other if they’re both sure, which they are. Together, they slam the stone down onto the ground and it shatters, releasing a dark storm.
Dun-dun-DUNNN!
Lyndsey’s Commentary: Character Arcs
I have a lot to discuss this week, as is fitting for the end of this massive five-book long series of character arcs. Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Szeth, Venli… all of our Big Five are getting their arcs tied up, and some other smaller characters are seeing resolution as well.
Mraize (Betd) / Shallan
Whoa. A Mraize POV? I didn’t see this one coming! This is a fascinating glimpse into Mraize’s mind, so let’s dive in, shall we?
[…] he could accept the pain of failing Iyatil and letting her die—yet at the same time he could glory in freedom.
Ah yes. The dichotomy of human emotion. Feeling multiple things at once! He does seem to be veering far more to the “happiness” side of the equation, though. Mraize’s ambition outpaces his grief, and he immediately begins planning his next steps. He’s in charge, now. Great! Except for one little problem… and that one little problem’s name, of course, is Shallan.
[…] if you could not control the beast, then it was your duty to put it down.
Nothing is going to get in the way of his ambition. Especially not some stripling of a girl who he’s been messing with for years. He ruthlessly analyzes her strategy and strikes out at what he knows is her weak point, emotionally:
“Yet I suppose it is not your first time sacrificing a spren.”
But it’s not enough to faze her. Shallan has moved beyond such petty strikes; she’s healed, if not completely, then at least to the point where outside influences can’t possibly hurt her more than she’s already hurt herself.
How had she become that good at sleight of hand? For the first time in this fight, he started to worry.
As usual, Mraize (like everyone else) has underestimated her.
If you don’t kill her, he thought, then she will kill you.
He thinks himself infallible. Of course he understands her completely—he’s so smart! Even though he’s just proven that he doesn’t understand Shallan, not truly. He’s spent so much time attempting to mold her, influence her, shape her to his own worldview—that of “only the strong shall survive.” He fully believes that the weak will be subsumed by the strong, and can’t conceive of the fact that she’s legitimately giving him a chance to survive.
This was the moment.
He makes his choice. Rather than accepting her charity, he refuses to believe that someone can offer a hand to another. That someone could possibly forgive someone else for trying to kill them. And so, he seals his own fate. Shallan kills him, because he forces her to.
In this moment, Shallan breaks free of him. Not in the taking of his life, but in rejecting his worldview and offering him that chance to redeem himself, to make of himself something better; something good. And Mraize proves himself to be exactly what he’s always been. He refuses to grow, to change, to be better. And he pays the ultimate price.
Interestingly, we do get this final line from Shallan:
“I have a choice too. I make it now. The choice to no longer let myself be abused.”
When Mraize proves that he’s unwilling to change, she makes this final choice. Sympathy and empathy can only go so far, if it comes at the price of your own peace and well-being.
I am not responsible for his bad choices… or the consequences of them.”
And there it is. She’s right—killing in self-defense is entirely understandable, and acceptable in almost every system of law, religion, or philosophy.
Shallan
[…] as Veil had carried Shallan’s memories, Radiant had carried her violence.
Oh, this is very interesting! Up until now, Radiant has been portrayed in a very positive light. She’s always been the swordswoman, the soldier, the steady and steadfast one who would do what the others could not. Dependable, loyal… a perfect soldier.
But now we’re seeing those same traits in a different light. She was the one that Shallan depended on for violence? Suddenly it puts her into a whole different context, doesn’t it? Yes… violence is sometimes necessary. But it’s rarely viewed as a positive thing.
“Shallan?” Pattern said. “Are you healed?” “That’s not how it works,” she said […]. “I will always have to fight my mind’s inclinations. It’s not that I’m healed, or even that Radiant is gone completely.” She stood up. “But I am better than I was.”
Time for the once-per-article gif drop! You’ll have to excuse me for going a bit… old-school anime weeb on this one. It’s too fitting not to use.
Venli
Venli had secretly worried she was ruining everything again.
An understandable fear, when the prospect of what she’s doing is so risky, and the consequences of her past actions were so dire. But this bet has paid off, in dividends. Her people’s land is hers once more, and she has atoned for her past sins. The dead stay dead, but she’s done what she could and made amends to her people. She’s righted her wrong, and given their lands back to them. Venli’s character arc, which began with that awful (but arguably well-intentioned) choice to sacrifice her people to the Fused and Odium, has been completed.
Dalinar
His sword, Oathbringer—the symbol of both Dalinar’s greatest sin, and his attempts at redemption—scoring the roof nearby.
Interesting… I’m reading this as his choice to give up the Shardblade to save Bridge Four as his act of redemption, but the plural “attempts” makes me think he’s referring to everything else since. I suppose that makes sense, in a way, but it does feel a little odd that he’d conflate everything that he’s experienced in that time with the sword he gave up in Book 1.
Kill Gav, and Taravangian’s philosophy proved correct. Walk away, and Dalinar would be forced to join him in advancing that philosophy anyway.He’s right though, isn’t he? Dalinar thought. It’s better that I kill one person now, to free Alethkar. Although he hated the way this had happened, Gav had chosen…Damnation. No. Dalinar wouldn’t accept that line of reasoning. A child taken by a monster and lied to for decades could not be held accountable for this decision.
An impossible decision forced upon a man just trying to do his best for the people under his care.
Perhaps he could manage those wars, so they didn’t get too terrible. Was it the worst thing, to have a capable general in the command structure, preventing atrocities?
He makes a decent point. Working against the status quo from the inside is something we see in a lot of fiction… and, if I may speculate for a moment about the author and his intentions, something that Brandon himself is doing in regards to the LDS Church. (He has stated in the past that he’s attempting to make changes from the inside. You can read about this in his own words here.) It’s not uncommon to see shadows of the things that the author feels or struggles with cast upon their fiction; I’d go so far as to say that it’s a core tenet of the entire field of literary analysis (as well as viewing the text as a mirror of societal and historical biases and experiences in regards to symbolism, but I digress).
So to bring this back around… Dalinar, like Brandon, struggles here with the concept of supporting something (or someone) that is actively causing harm, with the justification that the harm will be done anyway, and only by working inside the harmful entity can that harm be mitigated. With all this in mind, it makes Dalinar’s final choice on this matter even more interesting:
To do what Taravangian wished… that would be to reject Dalinar’s budding faith, and join a quest he knew was evil.
I suppose the difference here is that Brandon still sees more good than harm in the institution of the LDS, whereas Odium’s quest is nothing but harm.
Anyway. Dalinar comes down to the crux of the matter in this line, and the response by Taravangian:
[…] a king’s duty was to take upon him the sins of an entire government.[…]“It is hard,” Taravangian said, “to have one’s morals legitimately tested, isn’t it? To find yourself at the crossroads of what you’ve said and what you have lived.”
When this whole series is done, I think there are going to be some fascinating literary, philosophical, and societal analyses of Taravangian. As a villain, he’s utterly intriguing, because not only does he believe that he’s right… he makes the reader question it as well. I’d argue that only the very best villains can pull that off.
“One is not enough. The change must come from many.”
I’d just like to point this out, coming so close to what I just discussed at length above. Perhaps this is true; one person, working alone, is not enough to enact change on a wide scale. However, if Kaladin, Shallan, and Adolin have taught us anything, it’s that one person can absolutely build a community around oneself. And that community can then, in turn, enact change.
Was he really a man of his word? He’d told Elhokar that he didn’t want the throne, had sworn it to Sadeas, vowed he’d never be king … but then he’d taken that throne in all but name.The power didn’t care. So long as Dalinar technically hadn’t taken the throne, all was well.That bothered him.
Because Dalinar is a man of honor. It’s not enough for him to just hold to the letter of the law, so to speak. He needs to believe it wholeheartedly. He wants his oaths to be held to the best of his ability, genuinely.
Then he spoke to Honor the most important Words he might ever say. Words that only worked if he could say them truly.“I understand you.”
Words that Gavilar never could have said, despite all his searching. Gavilar lacked the empathy necessary to fully understand Honor.
Nale
Now the full force of Nale’s failures, the murders he’d committed, overwhelmed him.
Sounds awful familiar, doesn’t it? Well, Nale, we’ve got good news for you! You’re traveling with the world’s leading authority in feeling overwhelmed by failure! And even better… he’s now a therapist! Speaking of…
Kaladin
The darkness inside him said it was, that he’d end up going in the same circles as before.
I’m going to be honest… I have a hard time talking about Kaladin’s character arc and his struggles with depression, because it resonates so deeply with me. I’m afraid that I’ll bring too much of myself into the analysis, so I often back down on things I really want to say. This one time, I’ll expand.
I’ve been here. I’ve faced that chasm, the one that Kaladin stood over until Syl brought him a single leaf. And having stood there, I recognize all of these thoughts that rush through Kaladin’s brain. The self-doubt, and the thinking that you’re not enough (and never will be), and the fear that even if you try, you’re going to fail again and again and again, are as familiar to me now as my own name. It’s a constant battle, and sometimes you hear those echoes whispering in your mind even when you’re “better.” So to say that I relate to Kaladin on a deep, fundamental level is… putting it mildly.
The change to become this newest version of himself wasn’t about abandoning what he admired about himself. It was only about finding a healthy way to handle it.[…] Kaladin stood up to protect Szeth, Syl, and even Ishar. Not because he had to. Not because the situation forced him into it. But because this WAS the man he wanted to be.
A lot of my therapy has been focused around this very subject—find who you want to be, and put your effort into trying to manifest that, rather than dwelling on what you view as your failures. So I see Kaladin’s journey, and I applaud it, and I hope that someday I can definitively rediscover who I want to be, and stand for it with the pride and courage that Kaladin does here.
And I hope the same for any of you, dear readers, who are also on this same journey.
Please remember… we lift the bridge together, and you are not alone.
And if you don’t take my word for it… take Kal’s:
Still, it seems to help, doesn’t it? Knowing you aren’t alone.”
“I will protect myself, so that I may continue to protect others.
And there we have it. Kaladin’s final Oath. And the last step in his character arc (for this set of the series, at least). Whether or not he’ll continue to be a main character and have a fully fleshed-out arc of his own in the back five is still up for debate.
Ishar
An oppressive cloud that Ishar thought he’d been holding back, but had in reality been infecting every Herald. The blackness he’d absorbed from Odium centuries ago, by finding his pool of power.
Today on “cosmically bad mistakes,” Ishar takes the cake. He’s been spreading depression and insanity under the guise of charity all this time.
Nightblood
NO. IT IS TIME. GIVE ME TO SZETH. I WILL DRAW FROM YOU, NOT HIM, BUT HE NEEDS ME AND WE MUST DESTROY!
Yikes. For such a sweet and goofy character when sheathed, Nightblood becomes legitimately scary when unsheathed. It’s like his thirst for power completely overwhelms him. Drew’s going to go more into this below, so I’ll leave it to him.
Szeth
Teeth gritted at being made puppets, eyes wide at the horror of what they were forced to do. “Oh, Father,” he whispered. “I’ve been there. I have walked that road. I understand.”
Szeth does indeed understand, all too well, the horror and pain of being forced to do terrible things. But he holds in his hands the power to stop that pain for his loved ones. And, for once, he has the choice to do it or not… and is willing to make it.
Drew’s Commentary: Invested Arts & Theories
[The Magnified One] drew back his hand to swing at Venli, and while Leshwi and the others tried to intervene, it was El who moved first. Forming a long, thin sword from the air and stabbing it through the side of the Fused’s head.
Lots of tricks in these chapters, as all the various contests come to a head and our characters try to find solutions against impossible odds. The Listeners win the Shattered Plains, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.
El. Of course it’s El.
And the dude has a Shardblade—and not a deadeye Blade, restricted by a wait of ten heartbeats. He’s got it out and through the head of the Magnified One in the blink of an eye.
So. After 1250 pages of essentially no answers where El is concerned, Sanderson felt the need to drop another mystery on us. And this one is a real doozy, isn’t it? El holding a deadeye Blade wouldn’t have been too out of left field, in my opinion, but the way he summons this makes it clear that there’s something deeper going on. As I see it, we have four main options.
First: El is a Knight Radiant. He bonded a spren sometime between the end of Rhythm of War and this point in the story—likely an Enlightened spren, more inclined to work against the main group of the Knights Radiant. He advanced rapidly enough through his Ideals to achieve the Third (though likely not the Fourth, as I think he wouldn’t have been able to resist showing off some shiny armor). We’re given no indication of what Order he might be part of, but that’s a question for another day.
Second: El took Moash’s Honorblade away. Maybe he was upset with Moash’s failure to kill Sigzil. Maybe he was directed by Vargodium to reclaim the Blade once he locked in on Gavinor as the champion. Who knows, but that “long, thin” Honorblade is now in the hands of the most dangerous Fused possible, giving him unfettered Windrunning powers.
Third: El does have a deadeye Blade—but the deadeyes aren’t so dead anymore, are they? El is an Unoathed. He is the unorthodox one, after all, always willing to look at things from a different angle. He doesn’t like the stifling attitudes around oaths; instead, he thought along the same lines as Adolin and took advantage of the shifting metaphysical tectonics of Roshar to get a Shardblade that’ll work with him.
Fourth: El made something new. El made a voidspren Shardblade. Why not, coming from the most experimental of the Fused? The guy who is totally fascinated by humans, who sounds almost envious of them sometimes? Seems like just the kind of project El would be into, maybe along the same lines as whatever he’s doing with the metal carapace he’s obsessed with. If he can’t be a Knight Radiant or a Herald, he can have his own fun. After all, “it offers… different opportunities.”
He may be able to remake you, Dalinar, as the Unmade were created.
And in other news of things we never got real answers about: Seriously, what’s the deal with the Unmade? It’s pretty clear at this point that Odium must have taken some major spren and warped them with his own Investiture to create the Unmade—Raboniel was going to engineer something similar with the Sibling—but which spren did he use? They’re clearly entities of a major order, if not on the level of the Stormfather and Nightwatcher and Sibling, then at least much more substantial than Radiant spren. But through five books (and hundreds of pages of Spiritual Realm/History of Roshar lessons), we haven’t heard a thing about any ancient spren who both fit the bill and come in large enough numbers to create the Unmade.
I briefly considered the Night, but even that doesn’t fit because Cultivation used it to create the Nightwatcher. The Wind was still around, just forgotten, and same with the Stone.
What about Cucicesh? Were there perhaps ten spren like it, once upon a time?
I have learned from the other swords, Nightblood said in his mind. I know the Surges. I will Connect to you. You will feed me!
Okay, so yeah. Nightblood has a great character moment during this sequence, as odd as that might have sounded a decade ago… but as far as I’m concerned, this is the biggest deal in the chapter.
Nightblood was already one of the scariest things around, with its ability to drain Investiture at a lethal rate and even kill Vessels like Rayse. But now Nightblood is THE ultimate Shardblade. All ten Surges, at the fingertips of Nightblood’s bearer. As long as you’ve got the Investiture, you’re gonna be pretty much untouchable with our friendly neighborhood black Shardblade in your hands. And guess what? It just so happens to be in the hands of a guy who’s trained with all the Surges!
(For now.)
Notice that, once again, I barely mentioned anything from Dalinar’s scenes. Well, giddy up, cuz next week is Honor Ground Zero.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the comment sections of posts about this article on various social media platforms and may include some of your comments/speculation (with attribution) on future weeks’ articles! Keep the conversation going, and PLEASE remember to spoiler-tag your comments on social media to help preserve the surprise for those who haven’t read the book yet.
We’ll see you next Monday with our discussion of chapters 141, 142, and 143! After that we’ll be taking a break for the holidays, and returning on January 5th to finish up the book with two final articles.[end-mark]
The post <i>Wind and Truth</i> Reread: Chapters 137-140 appeared first on Reactor.
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