reactormag.com
Wind and Truth Reread: Chapters 69-71
Books
Wind and Truth Reread
Wind and Truth Reread: Chapters 69-71
Logic puzzles, philosophical debates, and mural-stabbing.
By Paige Vest, Lyndsey Luther, Drew McCaffrey
|
Published on June 16, 2025
Comment
0
Share New
Share
Greetings and salutations as always, Cosmere Chickens, and welcome to Day Six! We’ve got loads of lightweaving, leaps in logic, and, and… um… lamentations of… of…
Okay, the alliteration got away from me a bit. But this day is certainly starting off with a bang. From battles that aren’t really battles to philosophical debates on the intricacies of law and ethics, not to mention one really big revelation, we’ve got tons to dig into this week, so… won’t you join us?
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
It’s Day 6! And a lot is happening as we find our beloved (and not so beloved) characters halfway through the ten-day deadline for the contest of champions. We open with chapter 69, titled “Radical Philosophy,” and it’s a Kaladin POV. Szeth has become mostly non-responsive since Nale arrived; Kaladin can’t get him to engage in conversation. As he tries again to talk to Szeth, Nale interrupts and announces he’d like to hear about Kaladin’s radical philosophy and ideas. Kaladin is woefully inexperienced for carrying on a philosophical conversation with a freaking Herald. It goes about as well as you would expect, with Nale dominating the conversation.
This whole situation, with Nale joining them, has really thrown a fabrial into Kaladin’s attempts at therapy with Szeth, just as he was beginning to make progress. This is not only frustrating for Kaladin, but for us, as well. Now, I know I took part in the beta read, but I haven’t read the book since its release and some details are a little fuzzy, so bear with me if I misremember or don’t remember something at all. (And feel free to correct me or remind me in the comments if I get something wrong!) But I don’t recall how Kaladin gets past the mess with Nale arriving in order to help Szeth get to the place he’s at as the book comes to a close. Does Nale come around to Kaladin’s way of thinking? Does Szeth finally freaking stand up for himself? This is what I’m hoping… but please clarify my fuzzy memory for me, Sanderfans!
Kaladin and Nale argue for a time. Kaladin grows even more frustrated because Nale’s arguments have so many holes. Finally, Nale asks Kaladin who made the laws. When Kaladin doesn’t know, Nale explains that it was Jezrien, through God himself. Nale asks if Kaladin would destroy the laws of Shinovar—which, of course, he wouldn’t. And he tells Kaladin that he rescued Szeth when Kaladin left him to die in the storm. Kaladin protests, but Nale shuts him down. And then Szeth goes off to kill the Honorbearer at the Lightweaver monastery, despite having told Kaladin that he no longer wanted to kill. Poor Szeth. And poor Kaladin… Nale wiped the FLOOR with him.
POV SHIFT!
Jasnah is told by Ivory that their preparations and defenses are good as she leaves a strategy meeting. The city is essentially a fortress, which would be a nightmare for the singers to take.
As the enemy knew.They came anyway.
Ah, but did they? We know better, folks. As does Jasnah—or at least, she knows they’re missing something, but doesn’t know what. Ivory suggests that they need a scholar instead of a general. Knows he’s right, she goes to find paper and a quiet place to think.
Chapter 70 is titled “Contest of Illusions.” Szeth is prepared to go kill another Honorbearer. He feels lonely—his spren won’t speak to him, Nightblood only chats with the Honorblades, and Kaladin and Nale keep arguing. He actually feels angry at the pair of them for pulling him in different directions.
Then Nightblood does speak to him, asking if Szeth is okay. Apparently Nightblood can feel Szeth and can tell that he’s in pain. Then he asks if Szeth is evil. Of course, I don’t think Szeth really knows. He knows that killing is evil but sometimes it’s right to do so. And Nightblood is (understandably) confused.
Shouldn’t it be easy to tell what is good and evil?
You would think so, wouldn’t you, sword that wants to destroy evil yet sucks the life force from people?
Szeth arrives at the monastery and Nale prevents Kaladin from following him in, telling him that he’s not allowed to help Szeth.
Of course, inside Szeth finds a crowd of Shalash lookalikes. The voice of the Honorbearer tells him he must find her amongst the crowd of illusions and strike her down—otherwise his pilgrimage is done and he will lose. Szeth dismisses his blade and prepares to search for the Honorbearer.
POV SHIFT!
Next, we have Venli in the chasms leading a crowd of listeners—including the Five—and Fused, plus several chasmfiends. She feels she can hear the tone that the chasmfiends hear, and they’re following it to Narak.
She speaks with Thude and apologizes for everything. He tells her to let it go, but she regrets how sad he’s become. She wants them to help the humans in the fight but he refuses and reminds her that she’s not their leader. They barely have a thousand adults; the chasmfiends only number about a hundred. They’re worried about the ability to breed new chasmfiends if they lose many more.
Thude is also worried about the fact that they’re heading directly toward the Everstorm, as well he should be. And Venli relays some new information that Timbre gives her about Eshonai—how she had rejected Odium and was herself at the end. This seems to reassure both of them. But it makes me sad.
On to chapter 71, titled “Assumptions.” We’re back with Szeth at the Lightweaver monastery as he’s trying to find the Honorbearer, Moss, amongst the crowd of Shalashes. Just when he’s decided to strike one down, he suddenly hears a voice in his ear. Syl has arrived, though she isn’t showing herself. She says that if his own spren won’t help, and Nale won’t help or allow Kaladin to help, then she’ll help. He accepts her offer of assistance, and they proceed to narrow down the choices until they think they’ve found the perfect Shalash.
But it still feels wrong to Szeth, and after a moment he and Syl fly up above the crowd and see the answer in a mural of Shalash on the stone floor below. Szeth lands quickly and thrusts his blade into one eye of the mural, thus killing Moss and retrieving the Lightweaver Honorblade. Syl, taken aback, tells him they should have talked it over first and that he had been brash to act so quickly. And Szeth says something rather profound to me:
“Sometimes,” Szeth said, hefting the sword, “you simply have to make a decision.”
POV SHIFT!
Jasnah goes to Taln’s temple to think and to pore over various theories to try to figure out what they’re missing. I won’t go over the scene in too much detail, but she finally comes to the startling realization that there are likely no troops in the ships. Ivory realizes that she’s figured it out; the next step is to get some Windrunners close to the ships to test her hypothesis. (Which we all know is correct. All those forces at Thaylen City and no singers to fight. Tsk.)
Lyndsey’s Commentary: Character Arcs & Maps
First of all… bless you for this fashion folio art, Dan Dos Santos. On behalf of all cosmere cosplayers everywhere… B\bless you. (Now please excuse me while I go and start ordering fabric.)
Now, on to our chapter arch analysis: The Herald carvings are growing even more worn and ragged, but we can still make out Nale in two spots here in chapter 69, Palah in another, and Jezrien in the final spot.
Nale’s actually present in the chapter and chatting it up with Kaladin, so it makes sense that he’s taking up two spots. Jezrien is not only mentioned but also the Herald of the Windrunners, both of which account for his presence. And as for Palah… she’s almost surely here for Jasnah’s POV section, as Palah’s role is that of “scholar.”
Chapter 70 features (from bottom left to bottom right) the Joker/Wildcard, Taln in two spots, then Chana. This chapter arch is….weird, not gonna lie. Usually it’s pretty simple to figure out why the Heralds are portrayed, but this one has me totally stymied. I would have expected Nale (for Szeth), Shalash (since they arrive at a Lightweaver monastery), and maybe Kalak (for Venli), and yet… none of them show up. I’m gonna give you the Heralds’ attributes and throw it out to you in the comments… Can any of you puzzle out the meaning of this one?
Chana, Herald of the Common Man and patron of Dustbringers. Her attributes are Brave/Obedient and her role is Guard.
Taln, Herald of War, is the patron of the Stonewards. His attributes are Dependable/Resourceful and his role is Soldier.
The Wild Card is usually used to denote an appearance by Wit, but as the name implies, it’s a true wild card and could mean almost anything!
Chapter 71 is a somewhat rare example of an arch with three Heralds that are all the same, with Vedel holding three spots and Taln the final one. Oh. Oh, this one’s tricky. I looked quickly and didn’t notice that those three “Vedels” are actually one Vedel and two Shalash! These crumbling arches are going to start to get even trickier, I suspect, as time goes on.
Anyway. Taln’s sole appearance is likely due to Jasnah hanging out in his temple in her POV section. The two Shalash spots are certainly here because Szeth’s just won the Lightweaver Blade. Vedel, however… she’s tougher. Again, I’m coming up blank. Her attributes are Loving/Healing and she’s the patron of the Edgedancers, if anyone has an ideas…
I’m starting to wonder if the coherence of the Heralds’ appearances in the chapter arches is also starting to degrade. Are they beginning to show up at random, no longer adhering to the logical symbolism we’ve come to expect?
Credit: Dragonsteel
Kaladin
We begin Day Six with yet another Kaladin/Szeth chapter; but now Nale’s joined the party. (Yay.)
He’s trying to rile you, Kaladin told himself. He probably wants to annoy you to the point that you abandon Szeth to him.
Honestly, I think Kaladin is giving Nale too much credit here. I suspect that Nale is just doing what he normally would have anyway, and isn’t sparing a single thought for Kaladin or Szeth’s well-being.
It felt like their progress had been washed completely away in the highstorm rain. That was agonizing to Kaladin, because now—seeing how much Szeth needed help, how much like Tien he was—Kaladin’s passion for helping him had grown and grown.
Careful there, Kal. This is how you get yourself in trouble, allowing yourself to care so deeply for the well-being of others that your own gets lost along the way! Of course, we can’t really blame him, can we? Not now that we see the comparison he’s made in his mind to Tien. How can Kaladin resist atoning for what he views as his biggest mistake?
Nale
Kaladin and Nale’s whole debate on the ethics and philosophy of law is utterly fascinating on a few levels. First of all, it says something about Nale as a character. He’s essentially immortal, and has been around long enough to have thought these things through in depth. Poor Kaladin’s life has barely been the blink of an eye, comparatively. Nale has seen countries and empires come and go. Presumably he’s watched different attempts at government, law enforcement, and judicial systems come and go. One would think that he would have a much better idea than Kal on what works and what doesn’t.
Kaladin sounds utterly naive throughout this whole exchange. Nale counters him at every turn, and those counterarguments make a lot of sense. For every good point Kaladin makes, Nale refutes it and turns it on its head. He’s playing chess, while poor Kaladin’s playing checkers.
But maybe all that experience is also blinding him to the possibilities of what could be. Kaladin tries to make this point by circling back to Szeth; his oaths “to the law” are actively hurting him.
Do you know who picked him up off the ground the day you left him to die in the storm, Kaladin Stormblessed? Where was your compassion then?”Wind gusted dust across the two of them as they stared eye to eye. “He was actively trying to kill Dalinar,” Kaladin said.“So now you hide behind the law and the orders you were given?”
Oof. Check and mate, here. Nale not only counters Kaladin’s point, but turns it back against him and uses it to disprove the thesis.
Jasnah
And speaking of logic, here comes Jasnah to… well, not save the day. But attempt to figure out what’s wrong with the Thaylenah situation.
If she was going to prove her value to this group, it wouldn’t be through tactical acumen. She was better with military strategy than the average person, but the minds in that room were among the best in the world. […] But if she was right, this was a logic problem, not a military one.
Figuring out how best to use your unique talents is a skill in and of itself, and while Jasnah takes a little while to get there, she does eventually figure it out. She needs to think like the enemy. And think she does…
In chapter 71, we see a whole lot of pondering from Jasnah. I love her methodical approach to finding the true answer, and the process of going through each logical theory. I must admit that logic is not something I have ever studied, so I don’t know if the theories she invokes are real, but a cursory google search seems to indicate they are (albeit maybe renamed). None of this is surprising, of course; her logical approach to life is the core tenet of her whole character.
She and Ivory have an interesting relationship. It reminds me a bit of Sigzil and Vienta’s, with the spren helping the Radiant to form their thoughts and brainstorm on new angles. A very different (if still symbiotic) relationship than the one that Kaladin and Syl, for example, share.
Szeth
But perhaps re-forming the truth into what you wanted it to be was not a trait merely of liars, but of all human beings.
Goodness, everyone’s getting philosophical this week, aren’t they?
Kaladin and Nale argued. Did they care about Szeth, or merely about proving one another wrong?
Feeling like you’re the rope between a pair of people playing tug-of-war certainly would be a disconcerting feeling, especially for Szeth. He’s been manipulated for so long, trusting someone else can’t be an easy prospect for him.
Shouldn’t it be easy to tell what is good and evil?“We all pretend that it is,” Szeth said. “But if it were, then we would not disagree so much.”
Szeth out here spitting the real facts! The line between good and evil can sometimes appear arbitrary, and completely dependent on who’s drawing said line. It’s why he’s always preferred that someone else draw that line for him.
He trusted his mastery of the Blade against anyone other than a Herald, but his mind? He … did not trust that. No, not with those voices in the eaves.
This is actually a pretty valid fear. If I were hearing voices all the time, I might start questioning my sanity too, fantasy world or no.
“He’ll want to win no matter what choice I make,” Szeth said. “That’s the kind of puzzle this is, isn’t it? The kind he can’t lose, no matter which option I choose.”
So… the opposite of the Kobayashi Maru?
“Sometimes,” Szeth said, hefting the sword, “you simply have to make a decision.”
I find this assertion somewhat ironic, considering who it’s coming from.
Venli
Back before she’d grown jealous of her sister, before Venli had been trapped memorizing songs while her sister wasted time.She attuned Peace. That wasn’t the right way to think of it, was it?
I’m so, so proud of Venli. I know I say this every time one of her chapters pops up, but it’s so refreshing to see a character who is taking responsibility for her toxic behavior and taking real steps to change it—especially internally. Changing our own internal responses to things is far, far harder than changing our outward reactions to them.
Thoughts could turn to stone the same way. In her memories, she’d been “forced” to sit and train—but how true was that? She’d practiced because she’d loved the songs, loved learning, and loved spending time with her mother. Her resentment was because she hadn’t felt appreciated, not because of the work itself.
Venli is in the process of reframing her own history. She’s drawing back the curtain and attempting to see things the way they really were, not the way her jealousy convinced her they were.
Syl
“Nale said Kaladin can’t help you, but he didn’t say anything about me. I’m a god, aren’t I? Piece of one?”
Once again, Syl coming in as the absolute MVP!
Drew’s Commentary: Invested Arts & Theories
Day Six starts with… well, not exactly a bang. The epigraphs are from Dalinar’s Oathbringer, and don’t play much with the Cosmere lore/Invested Arts side of things… and the first chapter is more of the same, focusing on philosophical arguments between Kaladin and Nale before moving to Jasnah’s logic puzzle in Thaylen City.
But it does give us this:
“We reached out through the power of Elsecalling—Ishar was once a master of that art. I had some talent as well.”
Maaaan, do I want to know how Surgebinding worked on Ashyn before the fall. Five books into The Stormlight Archive, we’ve had the structures of Surgebinding on Roshar hammered into our brains, with the Radiants and Heralds tied very specifically to the dual Surges of their Orders. In fact, I remember making a note during the beta read when Ishar opened the giant Elsegate from Ashyn, wondering how the Bondsmith was Elsecalling.
But here we have mention that not only was Ishar good at Elsecalling, so was Nale, of all people… Were things just total free rein on Ashyn, where anyone could access any Surge? And it was just your particular predilections that dictated how good you were with any given Surge?
The cognitive dissonance around Nale, Herald of Justice and patron of the Skybreakers, popping around with Elsegates is such a big hurdle for me to get over.
But if chapter 69 was light on the magic, chapters 70 and 71 don’t skimp. Szeth and Kaladin and Nale arrive at the Lightweaver monastery, and Szeth is confronted with his latest challenge.
The test itself is neat, and nicely fitting for Lightweaving—discerning illusions, both literal and metaphorical. I do wish that Sanderson had taken this opportunity to explore a little more of the “standard” Lightweaver experience, though.
Illumination is the go-to for them, and especially so for us readers because Shallan is our primary window into the Order. She almost exclusively uses Illumination, struggling greatly with Transformation.
But that’s not the universal Lightweaver experience, and I think some crazy Soulcasting shenanigans would’ve been fun here. Even more than that, it would’ve been cool to see some advanced stuff—maybe even rudimentary lasers. We know that this is in the proverbial Lightweaver quiver, and someone using an Honorblade, unbound by Oaths, would be a great chance to introduce the concept.
Alas, we’re left with a triple-layered illusion, which Szeth survives only with the help of Syl.
These chapters also bring us back to Venli.
One thing that struck me during Venli’s POV in chapter 70 is how very much her abilities are mimicking Seekers on Scadrial. The sensation of Investiture pulsing is something we know can carry across worlds and Invested Arts, but Allomantic bronze is the primary source of it thus far in the Cosmere—even being utilized in Sixth of the Dusk by the Ones Above.
Here, though, there are depths to the idea of Willshapers having such a sense. Knights Radiant are described through more ephemeral ideas than Mistings on Scadrial, and it’s up to us to sort out why the Orders have the powers they do. Why the Resonances of those powers are what they are. Why the characters become Radiants in which Orders.
“Willshapers” is an evocative name, maybe even more so than some of the other Orders like Windrunners and Edgedancers and Skybreakers. Those other titles are fairly literal, but what does it mean to “Will shape”? Is it shaping a will, or is it using your will to shape? Is it both?
While it may seem at first that this power is an odd one to give to Willshapers, given their very tactile uses of Cohesion, it makes sense when you dig into it.
I think it’s important that bronze is the internal mental pushing metal. Will is an internal idea/concept, and shaping implies pushing. On top of that, Willshapers are the Reachers, explorers by nature, and also have access to the Surge of Transportation—something that brings great distances within reach.
The concepts involved are all a bit slippery, I admit, but Willshapers-as-Seekers fits.
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) in 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.
See you next Monday with our discussion of chapters 72 and 73![end-mark]
The post <i>Wind and Truth</i> Reread: Chapters 69-71 appeared first on Reactor.
News Feed (Home)
Popular Posts 
Events 
Blog 
Market 
Forum 
Go LIVE!
Headline News
VidWatch
Game Zone
Top PodCasts
