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Wind and Truth Reread: Chapters 117-120
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Wind and Truth Reread
Wind and Truth Reread: Chapters 117-120
Bad visions and messy gods abound (but glimmers of hope remain).
By Paige Vest, Lyndsey Luther, Drew McCaffrey
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Published on October 27, 2025
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Heya Sanderfans! Welcome to this week’s reread! Not gonna lie, folks… things are kind of dark in this week’s chapters. Lots of bad thoughts and bad vibes and bad mojo floating around. People caught in the Spiritual Realm being hammered by bad memories, Adolin fighting an unwinnable fight in Azir, Jasnah wallowing in her failure, and Tanavast coming to the realization that he’s not a very good god. Yes, it’s a dark week, but there are a few moments of brightness: Renarin feels it. Even Adolin does for a moment. And Paige cries about it. Let’s discuss!
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 121, “Bridger of Minds,” opens with Adolin fighting in a pike block formation. And he feels humiliated—not because he’s part of the formation, but because he feels so incompetent. He’s awkward with a pike, never having trained with one, and he’s awkward on the peg that’s replaced his missing leg, especially on blood-soaked cobblestones. Azish soldiers and Alethi soldiers are fighting side by side in mixed ranks and he feels worthless even beside other untrained fighters.
An Azish officer offers him a reprieve because the next shift is with a sword and shield, but Adolin thinks he might actually be better at that, despite his wounded leg. So he goes back into the rotation to fight.
Adolin just plugs away and plugs away, despite his injury, despite not having Plate or a Blade, despite overwhelming odds. That’s our Alethi Highprince… he just does NOT give up, Honor love him. *sniffle*
POV Shift!
Shallan drifts in the chaos of the Spiritual Realm, reliving memory after memory of her killing people. She’s allowed Odium to find her and now he’s doing all he can to break her. Even with good recent memories, she has trouble dealing with the visions as they’re thrown at her again and again, and as they morph into images of her killing anyone and everyone close to her.
This chapter didn’t mention Shallan seeing herself killing Adolin in the visions, and my memory doesn’t serve me at all, so I don’t know if Odium will throw that horror at her in coming chapters, or not, but if he does, that’s going to make me cry, for sure!
POV Shift!
Rlain has a vision of the day the listeners left to strike out on their own. Mishram had appeared to them, and Renarin’s ancestor and others feared her newfound power and her apparent desire to be a deity. She asks him why he’s leaving and he tells her he’s done fighting, done with never-ending war.
At one point, Mishram seems to come to herself, her current self, and seems confused. She says this was the day she realized that she had to find another way. Rlain realizes that the listeners leaving caused her to decide to meet with the humans.
POV Shift!
Renarin sees a vision of when he first started seeing the future and tries to make sense of it by creating stained glass windows to contain it all. He searches for information about the present and new windows grow around him. He sees a dark landscape, people enslaved, his father’s funeral pyre. He knows that the windows are dominated by Odium and Glys says that it has to be that way because it is what he (Glys) is, of Odium.
Renarin rejects that and ventures into the dark of the Spiritual Realm, summoning Light to see if it will help him see better. A new set of windows grows and as his Light touches the windows, they change. Shadows flee and the darkness evaporates, leaving the truth. Many versions of Renarin are there, as an ardent, a Stormwarden, a general. He sees Rlain, then Rlain and himself, and he knows that they’ll never be accepted together by either side.
Glys asks him why he wants to be with Rlain. He replies that Rlain has tried to understand them, that he wants to understand everyone. Renarin says that Rlain understands him when nobody but those in his family ever wanted to. Glys says that path leads to both pain and joy and Renarin thinks it’s better to feel than to take a path to greyness and safe solitude. He says he wants a life where they try to blend their worlds… that they have to change hearts and not maps.
After he leaves the vision, Glys takes him to another where Rlain walks with hundreds of singers. Renarin kisses Rlain, difficult as it is with their differing heights, and knows that this is the future he wants. He just hopes that those he cares for will understand that it was his decision to make. Rlain says that the kiss was nice, but that the world won’t take kindly to them being together, that he doesn’t want Renarin to get hurt. Renarin asks if Rlain will be the one to hurt him.
“No,” Rlain said to Confidence. “Never.”“Then I will risk it.”
Chapter 122, “Rival,” is an Honor POV from forty-five hundred years ago. He thinks he’s winning, though part of him asks how he could be happy with this devastation. There are more casualties on the other side, and humankind is sent back to the Stone Age each time but, it’s fine. This is all fine.
Despite his inner qualms about how horrible this all is, Honor goes to find his Heralds. He only felt Taln die this time, so he seeks out the other nine. As the inner thoughts keep gnawing at him, he realizes that it’s Tanavast speaking to him, arguing against Honor.
He finds Ishar, who is slumped and alone, asking to know what complete victory looks like. Because they defeat the enemy each time, driving them back to Braize, and then the Heralds follow. Honor gets distracted, thinking about how the power doesn’t like Kor, and about how long it’s been since he’s seen her.
Then Ishar informs him that the Heralds break, and that he doesn’t think they can go back this time. That he has an idea. He explains it to Honor, who sees many futures where the Heralds stop fighting. He realizes that they can’t hold so much of his power. He thinks that he needs to do more, improve the Heralds, be stronger. Then the others gather, and he sees and feels how much they’re hurting. Surprisingly, that hurts Honor.
Ishar asks if it’s a deific plan that Honor might create.
“To isolate the one, yes, but save the world?”
Honor says yes, but then the power takes stronger control. Honor suddenly hates Ishar, the others, for growing weak. Honor reviles the thought of them renouncing their oaths but lets them choose. He withdraws and becomes the storm to flee from their hurt. (That he created.)
FINALLY, I ACKNOWLEDGED THAT SOMETHING INSIDE ME WAS UNRAVELING—AND HAD BEEN FOR A LONG TIME. THE AILMENT STRIKING THE HERALDS WAS IN PART MY DOING.
He realizes that he’s losing himself and that he and the others had done something terrible on Yolen. He goes to Shinovar, where he hears whispers on the breeze. He thinks it’s Adolnalsium, but it’s only the Wind. He asks for help and is told no, so he asks what he needs to do. The Wind tells him to listen.
So he becomes one with the land and listens to the people. He’s with them as they recover from the war, as they live their lives. He stops trying to lead and just listens. And it starts to make sense. In time he comes to realize that they’re better off without him. The Wind corrects him and says that they’re better without what he has become… that it’s better to have no god than a heartless one.
AND A GOD WHO CARES?YOU KILLED THAT GOD.
Oof. That had to hurt Honor’s feelings, if he has any left at this point.
He remains that way for millennia. Eventually the clashes begin and he thinks that Taln has broken before realizing that no, Taln had not broken. He goes to Urithiru and seeks out Melishi to ask about the Desolation. Melishi explains it’s not a true Desolation, but that the squabbling Radiants could be united with another war. Honor tells him that war never unites and he leaves.
He avoids going to Kor and seeks out Rayse, who wants to fight. Tanavast feels a strong urge to fight and destroy Rayse, but remembers Ashyn and Natanatan with its shattered landscape. Rayse says he will force it. Tanavast says a clash would destroy them all but realizes that Rayse doesn’t care about that. Indeed, he doesn’t regret what he calls an “acceptable” cost.
Honor says they can choose champions to fight for them, to decide who rules Roshar. Rayse doesn’t agree and Honor knows that Odium will kill until there are no more people on Roshar. He begs Rayse as he doesn’t want them to die. Rayse again says he won’t choose a champion but as they’re locked in disagreement, Mishram finds Odium’s pool and partakes of it. Rayse is angry about this; when he’s offered a chance to be rid of her, he takes it. He agrees not to attack Honor but says that if Honor attacks, he will defend himself and will choose a champion.
He asks if there’s something that could be done about Mishram. Honor replies that Kor knows a way to capture and hold a powerful spren and that he will teach the power to his Bondsmith.
Dun-dun-DUNNNN.
Chapter 123 is titled “A Memento of Failure” and opens with Adolin rotating through the ranks. Shield and spear. Pike. Water. Rinse and repeat. They fought through the night to hold the line. During one short period of rest, he rages at his father, who in his writing had talked of finding solace in something better, higher:
A different God than the Almighty, a God that he described only as a sense of warmth. A God he claimed made things right eventually.
Adolin is angry that Dalinar had butchered all his life and then was able to offer such an uplifting message. How dare he claim the high ground, or judge Adolin for killing Sadeas when he’d killed Adolin’s mother. He gets lost in his thoughts about how the world had gone insane and he’d been told he was spoiled, that he needed to forgive and not be the problem and strive to live up to his father’s example.
He then realized that he felt a desire to simply give up. Then the call comes to rotate back in and he’s handed a spear and shield. He wanted to just lie there but doing that would be failing Kholinar again. So he gets up and takes his spot, finding motivation in knowing that Kaladin had survived worse than this as a bridgeman.
There, Adolin realized he was smiling. Stupid bridgeboy. Where did he get off, being so inspiring?
This legit made me cry. He finds a moment of inspiration in what his friend had gone through—and then it’s back to Damnation for him.
Poor Adolin.
POV Shift!
Jasnah is alone in Taln’s temple after Fen and Odium had made their deal for Thaylenah to serve Odium regardless of the outcome of the contest of champions. Jasnah is revolted, even as she thinks that it might have been the right decision for Thaylenah. She thinks of how she’d gone about the whole argument with Taravangian wrong, and in doing so had proven his point to Fen.
Her philosophy had failed her. The histories failed her. Finally, she tries to cling to her own mind, thinking and reasoning, needing to trust her conclusions. But then she remembers a time her mind failed her and her family had locked her away—might they do so again?
She sits there crying until Taravangian appears again. He states that he is God; she denies that he is. She says there are gods, and that she accepts that he is one of those, and that it’s “no shame for me to be bested by one who has such capacity.” He asserts that they are the same and she said that he caught her in a lie so if they were the same, then he was a liar, too. He reveals that he did lie and summons Deepest Ones who were set to kill the members of the Thaylen City Council if Fen did not agree to join him.
Then he says that she has always served him and that he will need someone to rule the planet when his attention shifts to the cosmere. He tells her to come to him when she’s ready. She insists that he can’t leave because he’s locked on Roshar, but he talks of launching full armies in a few centuries, telling her to join him and that he will make her an immortal Fused. When Jasnah vows that she’ll never join him, he replies that she’s still lying because surely she can see the value of serving him. She finds herself unable to refute him.
After he leaves, she receives a copy of Fen’s contract with Odium “as a memento of her failure.”
Lyndsey’s Commentary: Character Arcs
Adolin
Adolin tried not to think about who he was killing: people who arguably were barely a year old. Legitimately angry at what had been done to them, they had been taken in by Odium, made soldiers, and now were forced to charge pike blocks.
Adolin has always been excellent at empathy, at understanding his enemies just as much as his allies. Unfortunately, that is not always a boon, as we see here. If forced to kill, it could be considered a blessing to be blind to the lives that you’re ending.
My ego isn’t accustomed to standing in a formation rather than running around in Plate, virtually impervious.
Adolin is accustomed not only to leadership, but to being highly skilled and equipped with weapons and armor which grant him a distinct advantage in the field. Having all of that stripped from him and being forced to fight not only as a “normal” soldier, but as a disabled one at severe disadvantage due to his injury, is a wakeup call. Not that Adolin has ever taken his less advantaged soldiers for granted, mind… but it’s one thing to know about such things, and something else entirely to experience them firsthand.
He is also dealing with the very real prospect of failure—again. He failed at Kholinar, and here he is again, overwhelmed by an enemy force and facing defeat. And this time, there’s no escape.
He’d always secretly hated that part of Vorinism […] The doctrine that upon death, they all just kept on fighting. […] For eternity.
Yet more instances of the Alethi obsession with battle and honor. I think Adolin’s got the right of it here.
How dare the Blackthorn, soaked in blood, claim the high ground?How dare he judge Adolin for killing Sadeas and protecting their family, when Dalinar had burned Adolin’s mother alive?
He’s still struggling with this, and rightfully so. I think that reaching a point where he can forgive his father will be a long time coming, if it comes at all. Respecting that others can change, can grow and become better people, is one thing… accepting all the deaths they caused along that part is another thing entirely.
Shallan
Anger, pain, and betrayal. From parent to child to child. All of that, and so full of hatred—as her father hated his father and hated his children, who hated him.
The cycle of abuse. We can only hope that Shallan has healed enough that she won’t perpetuate it with her own children.
“No,” Shallan whispered. “I wouldn’t kill them.”Yet in the vision she did, over and over. Everyone who had ever loved her, helped her, or offered her mentoring.
Odium is taking her deepest fears and amplifying them to a terrifying extent. He is making a fatal error, however: He’s underestimating Shallan. She’s spent her whole life dealing with fear and horror. It has only ever served to strengthen her, in the long run. Forcing her to face her fears, as he is doing now, will take the red-hot metal of her determination and gradually temper it—eventually hardening into a blade of the strongest, unflawed steel.
Rlain
He’d always imagined they had culture, creations, nations, that rivaled those of the humans—but a part of him had felt an itching worry. That perhaps the singers weren’t capable of such majesty.
I cannot imagine how this must feel for poor Rlain. To have decades, nay, millennia of culture stripped from your people is a horror that few can truly comprehend. Seeing this potential manifest must be incredibly healing for him, but also frustrating. They could have had so much, if not for the meddling of outsiders.
Bridger of Minds, something seemed to whisper to him on the wind. Not Mishram this time. The one who is of both worlds. You can heal us.
I LOVE that Rlain appears to be the prophesied one who will bring balance to the force peace to humans and singers. More on this in the Renarin/Rlain relationship section below…
“Abandon our… forms?” the femalen asked.“What are we without forms?” said another, to Anxiety.“Free,” Rlain said to Resolve.
Wow. This is incredible, when you think about all that they’re sacrificing. But Rlain is right; they retain their freedom in the long run, and preserve what is left of their culture.
I want… want so badly to break something, everything, for what was done to me. I… I cannot hold it back, most days. I rage, I scream. I will kill you, if I can. I fear it. What will you do, when you find me?“I don’t know yet,” he said, and started walking away. “Maybe I’ll just listen.”
We see another parallel here to Kaladin and his struggles with Szeth and Nale… and I would say that Kaladin trained Rlain well in his time in Bridge Four, but that’s not entirely accurate, is it? Rlain has always been a good listener. Always on the outside, treated as an other, quiet and reserved. Listening, and learning, and living.
Renarin
“This was the future he wanted”
But he couldn’t help remembering his fear—his worry at what was wrong with him. That he—in seeing the future—was to be consigned to Damnation for his heresy.
I honestly don’t know if this is just me or if this is just super relatable in general… but that feeling of “something is happening to me, and I don’t think it’s happening to anyone else, and am I broken” does seem to be something that a lot of people connect with Renarin over.
Soon after this, the younger Renarin would learn to channel all this information into a visualization. Stained glass windows; a way to bring order to the chaos of the Spiritual Realm.
Yet more examples of the power of visualization. Kaladin with his “soldier thoughts,” and let’s not even get into Shallan with her personas…
No one is normal. Normal doesn’t exist.
I love this, and I love it for him that he finally realizes it. This is maturity, right here. And it’s a maturity that not everyone achieves.
“My father can’t end this war by drawing lines and trying to enforce them. If we want to end the war for real, we have to change hearts, not maps.”
And now I’m extra excited to see Renarin and Rlain’s progression in the back five. What a departure from the usual fantasy tropes! Finding peace through compassion and understanding, not by waging war against an ultimate evil. How refreshing.
Rlain/Renarin
He wanted to seize that, to hold to Renarin and never let go. He felt elated, and kept attuning the Rhythm of Joy, including when he deliberately shifted off it for another reason.
Awww. The honeymoon phrase. It’s so sweet, watching two people fall in love!
“I spent my life being told I had to become an ardent, Glys. Because people couldn’t think of anything else to do with a highborn boy who couldn’t fight.”
Finally, Renarin has found his place. He’s found value in the opinions of others… which is what makes his decision to start a real relationship with Rlain extra brave. He knows that doing so will put him on the outside again… but he does it anyway.
“If I go with him,” Renarin said, “I’ll have to turn my back on humankind, to an extent.”As he will need to turn his back on his kind to an extent, Glys agreed. Both sides will hate both of you.
To find your place, respect, and understanding after a lifetime of seeking it, and to then turn your back on all those things willingly to gain love is… wow. It’s incredibly romantic, and brave, and sweet.
“I love that he tries so hard. So many people just dismiss the different. I’ve lived that all my life, seeing it all around me. But Rlain… he wants to understand everyone.”
I love that this is his reasoning. It’s not because Rlain is handsome, or talented, or any superficial reasons for attraction. It’s his compassion and empathy that Renarin loves, and that says a lot about him, doesn’t it?
This was the future he wanted. It wasn’t the one that others might have chosen, and wasn’t one that many would have chosen for him. He wasn’t even certain it was right, but it was what he wanted.
A sentiment that any LGBTQIA couple can relate to.
I don’t want you to get hurt.”“Will you be the one to hurt me?”“No,” Rlain said to Confidence. “Never.”
MY HEART.
Ba-Ado-Mishram
“Why do you fight, Mishram? Don’t you want peace?”“Humans will never want peace unless they are forced into it,” she said. “Once I bring them to the brink of collapse, we shall see.
I hate to say it, but she does appear to be right. The Rosharan humans love their battles, especially the Alethi.
And in the distance, Mishram stood tall. She let us go, he realized. He’d never considered that. He’d imagined them sneaking away, but this was the full light of day, beneath the sun and sky.
For all her faults, she allowed them the freedom of choice; to join her, or to walk away.
TANAVAST
I, HONOR, WAS WINNING.
Interesting that he’s switched to referring to himself as Honor, and not God. I’d say that maybe this signals that he’s learned a bit of humility but uh… this is Tanavast we’re talking about here.
FINALLY, I ACKNOWLEDGED THAT SOMETHING INSIDE ME WAS UNRAVELING—AND HAD BEEN FOR A LONG TIME. THE AILMENT STRIKING THE HERALDS WAS IN PART MY DOING. I HAD SHARED TOO MUCH OF MYSELF WITH THEM, AND I WAS… SLOWLY…LOSING MYSELF.
And I have to eat my own words after only, what? Three pages? Tanavast is discovering his flaws.
I STOPPED TRYING TO LEAD, TO ORGANIZE, OR PUSH—AND INSTEAD LISTENED.
A common theme in this book. All of the characters are learning to listen… to wind, and to truth.
I, TANAVAST, REMEMBERED THE LAND AND WHAT I’D LEARNED OVER THE LAST TWO AND A HALF THOUSAND YEARS.
Took ya long enough, Tanner.
The Philosophy of Aspiration, the very philosophy she’d relied on for so many years, had failed her completely. Losing that, realizing that she might have built the bedrock of her life upon a flawed philosophy that even she didn’t truly believe, shook her to her core.
Seeing Jasnah of all people, who was always so confident and secure, be shaken this way is troubling. Even the wisest and most logical still have room to learn and grow, and we are seeing that clearly here. So far as I know, Jasnah is still set to be one of the main POV characters of the back five; so presumably we’ll be seeing her character arc begin in the aftermath of this setback.
She looked up, having crouched by the wall unconsciously remembering those days locked away as a child. She’d cried in a barren corner until her mother had returned—at long last—from her trip and restored the sunlight.
We know that the Alethi method of dealing with mental ailments was locking people in the dark; we saw ardents doing it with soldiers before Kaladin freed them. What ailment—imagined or true—plagued Jasnah and subjected her to such treatment? We’ll find out in the back five, I suppose.
Illustration
If you’re looking for a translation of the Alethi script on the illustration at the end of chapter 122, terracubist over on the 17th Shard has you covered.
Drew’s Commentary: Invested Arts & Theories
Bridger of Minds, something seemed to whisper to him on the wind. Not Mishram this time. The one who is of both worlds. You can heal us.
This is one of those innocuous lines that I never really considered before this reread. If it is indeed not Ba-Ado-Mishram here, maybe it’s Honor? Nobody else immediately comes to mind as fitting both the Spiritual Realm deal and this sort of ethereal, needs-healing tone.
She held out a hand, and darkness rained from beneath her downturned palm, forming a miniature storm.
Nothing remarkable about this in a theory or magic sense—we’ve known for a long, long time that Ba-Ado-Mishram was giving the singers forms of power during the False Desolation—but this is just a really cool visual.
Eventually, Glys would offer some explanation—that he, as a newer spren and only recently defected to Sja-anat, hadn’t realized what all this would do to Renarin.
I’m pretty sure I’ve brought this up before, but my memory isn’t perfect. In case not: It has always baffled me that the Truthwatchers weren’t capable of the same (or at least similar) abilities as Renarin and the other Enlightened Truthwatchers.
There is an abiding belief in the Vorin world that seeing the future is of the Void, an evil thing. But we know that not everything Vorin is exactly to be held up as the pinnacle of truth—and in fact lots of Vorin beliefs fly directly against the reality of the Knights Radiant.
So for an Order of the Knights Radiant whose Surges are Illumination and Progression, wouldn’t it make sense that they can shine light forward, e.g. see the future? We’ve never really gotten answers about what the original Truthwatchers could do, since most of our modern Truthwatchers seem to be Enlightened, and all the true detail about the Order has come through the perspectives of Renarin and Rlain.
Sure, they have Progression and can heal, like Edgedancers…and maybe they can do some form of Lightweaving, but that can hardly be the limit of their powers. Each Order should have a unique resonance between their Surges. Even Renarin himself agrees:
The ancient Radiants must have known this was possible, right? Their order was named for it. His society said that seeing the future was a terrible and evil thing, but maybe that was just because Odium influenced it so heavily. Surely there was a way to cut through it.
I’d say that we’ll have to wait for Renarin’s book to get those answers, but that doesn’t even seem right, either. Renarin is an Enlightened Truthwatcher, after all, and we’ve already gotten a heaping serving of how his powers work. On top of that, I’ve already mentioned that we have no clue how everything is going to work after the Night of Sorrows, the reshaping of Roshar, and the loss of Stormlight.
I want answers, Brandon!
NOHADON’S BOOK. YES…IT HAD BEEN CENTURIES SINCE THAT MAN HAD DIED. SUCH A CURIOUS INDIVIDUAL.
We’ll be talking more about Nohadon toward the end of the book, of course, but it really is worth pointing out that he’s gotta be the single most enigmatic figure in this series so far—moreso than El, and yes, even than Hoid (we actually know a fair amount about Hoid now, don’t we?). This one guy seems to have had such an incredible amount of influence on the world and the future, and has somehow hung around for so long while acting upon Dalinar from the other side of death (probably death, right?) through the visions. He seems more important than even the Heralds!
THERE I LAY DOWN IN AN UNCULTIVATED GRASS FIELD, PRETENDING I WAS A BOY BACK ON YOLEN. LOOKING UP AT THE SKY, AND THE CLOUDS, AND FEELING…WHISPERS ON THE BREEZE.“ADONALSIUM?” I WHISPERED.
Honor—Tanavast, more properly—is really starting to unravel here. It’s quite something to see the perspective of a Vessel succumbing to the pressures of his Shard. It’s also yet another hint about the Shattering of Adonalsium, this regret over the “terrible” thing they’d done. But Tanavast finds an echo of Adonalsium in the Wind, which remains so confusing to me, given the Word of Brandon I mentioned previously about Investiture getting assigned to the Shards after the Shattering.
HAVING NO GOD IS FAR PREFERABLE TO HAVING A HEARTLESS ONE.
Is this a clue hidden in plain sight, so soon after his musings on the Shattering? Did they destroy Adonalsium because it was a “heartless god”?
There are other theories, of course: that Adonalsium had become corrupted, or twisted, or tainted by fainlife. That Adonalsium was going to turn on its own creation and destroy the Cosmere. But what if it was simply that the people of Yolen yearned for a more attentive god, and decided to make gods of themselves, thinking foolishly that their experiences as mortals would prepare them for godhood?
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.
See you next Monday with our discussion of chapters 124 and 125 as well as Interludes 17 and 18![end-mark]
The post <i>Wind and Truth</i> Reread: Chapters 117-120 appeared first on Reactor.
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