Books Wind and Truth Reread Wind and Truth Reread: Chapters 130-132 Adolin battles for his life, while Dalinar and Szeth stand and will not fight… By Paige Vest, Lyndsey Luther, Drew McCaffrey | Published on November 24, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Ahoy, Sanderfans, and welcome back to our Wind and Truth reread! We’re happy you’re here and we hope you’ve enjoyed these three chapters of rapid-fire POV shifts! We get to see Adolin facing off against Abidi, Dalinar being confronted by Gavinor, Shallan finally figuring out who Formless really is, Rlain and Renarin struggling to decide what to do about Mishram, and Szeth and Kaladin dealing with Ishar and his human Fused. SO MUCH IS HAPPENING! It is truly Sanderlanche time and we are HERE for it! 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 Chapter 130, “The Pleasure of Bleeding,” starts with a Szeth POV. When last we saw them, Szeth, Kaladin, and Syl were approaching Ishar, waiting to find out what test the Herald has in store for Szeth. They confer with each other, wondering what will happen, and Kaladin reminds them that Nale said Ishar would test Szeth to teach him humility. (Yeah, like he hasn’t learned that yet. Okay, Ishy.) Szeth decides that he is done with killing “unless he was given a very good reason.” He will have to decide if the cost of fighting is worth it. Szeth announces to Ishar that he has finished his pilgrimage and Ishar, being the cocky, self-important Herald that he is, allows Szeth to approach. Kaladin and Syl follow him as he steps closer, while Nale remains in the wagon for now. Szeth asks Ishar if he was truly the Voice in his mind and Ishar confirms it, speaking directly into Szeth’s mind. Then he says Szeth has returned to him: “Refined, like the clay pot having been fired in the kiln.” He’s basically just used Szeth as if he was a plaything. This really pissed me off, the way Ishar is so arrogant and manipulative. Syl asks him where the spren are. Ishar replies that they rejected him, so he rejected them. Szeth guesses that Ishar did that so that his people would continue to look for spren and worship them, so that when the Voice suddenly popped into their heads, they would happily follow its commands. Ishar announces that it’s time for Szeth to become the first of the new Heralds, to train others to lead the human Fused and the spren armies. That’s not unsettling at all. At this point, Nale approaches, telling Ishar that he’s wrong, that none of them are able to see straight. Ishar is pretty rude to him, telling Nale that he’s weak and that he’ll be the next Herald to be replaced. Ishar assures Szeth he’s nearly ready. Kaladin directs Szeth to look behind them, where people are approaching the wagon. There are six other Honorbearers—the ones turned into Fused by Ishar—who each take an Honorblade from the wagon. Then they come forward, passing Kaladin and Szeth. Nale fetches the rest of the Honorblades, saying that something must be done. Then all of the Honorbearers put their Blades into the slots where they left them at Aharietiam; Nale talks of how there were nine before, except that they didn’t have Taln’s. Ishar says that they still have nine, as they’re missing the blade they sent with Szeth. Szeth replies that it was lost; Ishar assures him that a new one will form when he joins the Heralds. Then Szeth notices that one of the Honorbearers is his father. Ishar addresses Szeth again, telling him that it’s good that he has returned to his God. Kaladin immediately informs Ishar that he is not a god, and that they’ve come to try to help him. Ishar is disdainful, stating that Dalinar’s contest is about to begin and that he’ll fail. Then he tells Szeth that he must be humbled and that the Honorbearers will defeat him together. He instructs Kaladin and Syl to stand beside him so they don’t interfere. Szeth quietly tells Kaladin that he must talk with his father, and that while he fights, Kaladin must convince Ishar to release the Shin. Syl understands immediately: If Ishar agrees to this, then Szeth’s quest is fulfilled. Szeth will ascend to his next oath, which means that Ishar will be sane so Kaladin can speak with him. Kaladin doesn’t know how to convince Ishar to release Shinovar but Syl is sure they’ll think of something. Oh, my sweet summer child. *tsk* Seth goes to face the Honorbearers, intent on losing the fight while Kaladin somehow talks Ishar into releasing the Shin. POV Shift! Dalinar reaches the top of Urithiru, armed only with a copy of The Way of Kings. He’s early, but Taravangian also pops up early. Then he introduces his champion. He opens a portal from the Spiritual Realm and out strides a man in a Kholin uniform, carrying Oathbringer: Elhokar. POV Shift! Back to Szeth, who promptly gets beat down by his own father and then systematically beaten and kicked by the other Honorbearers. POV Shift! Adolin! He’s dodging attacks by Abidi the Monarch as best as he can, but he’s barely able to stay ahead of the Fused. He tries again to summon Maya but, of course, cannot. He tries to reach the throne to trigger the unlocking mechanism but can’t find it. Despite Abidi being awkward in the Plate—Adolin’s own Plate—Adolin is barely staying ahead of him as his peg makes him unstable. He thinks for a moment that he’ll die there, but then rallies and decides that he has to find a way to stop Abidi. He’s not doing so well, so he taunts Abidi, asking how he had survived Taln’s attack, and why he didn’t fight Taln if he’d wanted a challenge. Then he asks if Abidi ran away and the Fused kicks a table at him, clipping him on the shoulder. He decides to run and dodge, rather than taunt; then Abidi begins taunting him in turn, asking if he misses the power of the Plate, asking if he feels small. Adolin whispers that he has felt small for years. Ugh, I hate how Adolin feels so unimportant and impotent because he’s not a Radiant. And yet, in this moment he finds a new perspective, and realizes that the darkeyes had always felt small in a world of Shardbearers. Then he thinks of how Kaladin had managed to kill a Shardbearer years ago, and he remembers his training with Zahel. Adolin finds new strength and focus, remembering that training, and begins moving more confidently, accounting for the peg as he moves about. Abidi offers him a deal: If the emperor surrenders, he’ll let them both live. He wants Yanagawn to become his servant rather than remain the monarch of Azir in exile, where he could garner support. Abidi obviously hadn’t recognized Yanagawn without his accoutrements and Adolin pretends to consider the offer. As he does so, he looks to an overturned table that had been covered with finery. He grabs something from the ground and turns to face a strike of the Blade from Abidi… stopping it cold with an aluminum candelabra. Chapter 131 is titled “The Worth of a Life” and opens with Shallan facing Mraize. Radiant asks if Shallan wants her to handle this but she says she doesn’t need Radiant right now. She banters with Mraize a bit, as they’re wont to do, and Shallan thinks he’s too confident. She wonders what she’s missing. Then she thinks of Iyatil and asks where she is. Mraize says she’s watching Dalinar but Shallan, moving on instinct, suddenly turns to attack Formless, who is lurking to the side. POV Shift! Kaladin looks away from the very unfair fight unfolding around Szeth in order to focus on Ishar. Nothing he says fazes the man, who seems to know exactly what Kaladin is about to say and counters it. Kaladin starts to play the Syl-flute and Ishar shuts him down. He bluntly tells Kaladin to keep his rhymes and songs to himself: “The adults are trying to save the world.” POV Shift! Renarin and Rlain inspect Melishi’s corpse. Mishram rants about how the world must be broken. They speak with Mishram a bit, knowing they need to do something quickly in case Shallan fails. Renarin asks if they should help her and Rlain said Shallan didn’t sound as if she wanted help. They focus on the gemstone and try to come to a decision. POV Shift! Dalinar is reeling over the Elhokar reveal… and then the man speaks and calls him Grandfather. It’s not Elhokar, it’s freaking Gavinor, aged twenty years in the Spiritual Realm in the space of an hour, since Navani had returned with a fake Gavinor. “No,” Dalinar said. “I don’t believe it. I can’t. This is an illusion. A Fused wearing his face.”“Believe that lie if you wish,” Taravangian replied. “Maybe it will make you feel better when you kill him.” Gavinor has been conditioned during those “twenty years” to loathe Dalinar. Dalinar is utterly disgusted and tells Taravangian he’s done something truly horrific. He says he won’t fight his grandson and demands that Taravangian choose someone else. Of course, Taravangian will do no such thing. The Stormfather speaks in Dalinar’s mind, telling him it’s actually Gavinor. With this confirmation, Dalinar’s heart breaks. The contest hasn’t actually begun yet so he tries telling Gav that he’s been tricked and misled. Taravangian has prepared the boy, telling him that Dalinar would say this very thing. Gav says he was born to be a king and he will make the land his own. Taravangian has promised to give him Alethkar, and he vows that he will free their people. Dalinar insists he won’t fight Gavinor, but Taravangian says Dalinar is going to kill the boy—that he will save Alethkar and protect the cosmere by murdering an innocent. Chapter 132, “Fear What Is Coming,” opens with Adolin, who proceeds to attack Abidi with a plain sword and an aluminum candelabra. The Fused starts fighting in earnest and though he has the power of Plate, Adolin cares. He takes advantage of Abidi’s inexperience with the Plate and Abidi becomes frustrated and starts questioning his opponent. He asks why Adolin even bothers with this battle, as Azir isn’t his land. Adolin replies that the Fused made it everyone’s fight when they invaded. They brought him and so many others together, to stand against their common enemy. Adolin hesitated. “Besides. I promised I would help.”“Bah!” Abidi said. “You humans and your oaths.”“Not an oath,” Adolin whispered, parrying the Shardblade with a clang. “A promise.” In that moment, he realizes how different the two things are, in his mind, and the real importance of that distinction. POV Shift! Szeth’s spren is trying to help him, though it’s really not much help at all. He continues to get pummeled by the Fused Honorbearers and tries to yield. Ishar, however, won’t allow him to yield. He says it will be over when he says it’s over, when Szeth fights and loses. Szeth realizes that there should be seven Honorbearers there, but that there are only six. Then he sees the solution: He’d killed the Edgedancer with Nightblood. POV Shift! Rlain and Renarin kneel by the gemstone and clasp hands. Renarin asks what they should do and they ponder different strategies. They talk about finding another hiding place in the Spiritual Realm, or in Urithiru. Rlain thinks that someone, somewhere, would want this prison because Odium fears Misham. He wonders if it would be a betrayal of his people to free her. Tumi warns him to be very careful. Renarin asks Mishram why she led them to her; she continues to mutter about destroying them, though she grows quieter when Rlain says that she led them because she thought they might help her. After all her years of imprisonment, Rlain thinks that she still hopes for freedom. POV Shift! Ishar yells at Szeth to defend himself, and Kaladin notices that the Honorbearers get more aggressive when Ishar shouts. He tries to engage Ishar in conversation, as does Nale. Ishar is having none of it. He believes that he is the Almighty and can withstand the darkness that has stricken the other Heralds. Nale says the power of Odium has corrupted Ishar. Kaladin tries to antagonize Ishar, telling him he’s a god but leaves his people without choices. He says nobody worships Ishar, but Ishar insists they pray to the Almighty. Kaladin says they think they’re praying to Tanavast. He argues that Ishar forces people to follow him, that Ishar is just a pretender, pointing out that if Ishar released them and they still worshiped him, that would be different. Ishar sees the trick for what it is and asks Kaladin why he’s there. He says again that he didn’t foresee him coming. He chides Kaladin for being too broken to fight and unable to help with strategy, suggesting Dalinar sent him to Shinovar just to get him out of the way. Once, Kaladin would have been hurt by these words, but he’s grown, so he reminds himself that his worth doesn’t come from whether he helps, but whether he tries. As Ishar walks toward the fighting, Kaladin tells him again that he’s not a god, only a man, and that he needs help. Then the Wind returns. Syl says the spren are afraid, that they know something difficult is coming. Ishar says creepily that he has plans for the spren and that their fear of him should be greater than of that which is coming. Then he turns back to the ongoing brawl and yells at Szeth, telling him that he had not expected disobedience. Ishar furiously orders him to fight, and everyone’s attention turns back to Szeth and his failing Stormlight. Lyndsey’s Commentary: Character Arcs Szeth No more fighting unless he decided the cost was worth it. I’m so proud of Szeth for standing up for himself again. He’s made his own choice, not stood aside and let someone else make it for him. Dalinar […] Dalinar found himself standing tall. He was deeply flawed, but if those flaws were obvious to him now … that was because he had grown to the point he could acknowledge them. Recognizing that you have a problem is always the first step to any type of recovery. You can’t do anything about your flaws if you refuse to see them. Adolin “You ran, didn’t you?” Adolin asked, backing away, sword out, hand coated in sweat. “How regal of you.” Clever of Adolin, to use psychological tactics against his opponent: Get Abidi angry, not thinking about his attacks, and maybe he’ll stand a better chance. Anyone who’s ever used Vicious Mockery in D&D or a taunt in a fighting game knows that. […] last night, he’d been a common spearman. Adolin realized right then that the world hadn’t changed that much. The darkeyes had always felt small in this world of Shardbearers.Adolin’s place had changed. He’d been complaining about suddenly being one of the small ones—a reality the vast majority of soldiers lived with every day. Adolin has recognized his privilege. It is a sad fact that often, it takes losing that privilege to really understand and respect it. I’d love to see him have a talk with Kaladin about this revelation. Kaladin’s railing against the lighteyes in earlier books was based heavily in the injustice of their treatment of the lower caste, so he’d understand this concept intimately. “You unified us as nothing has ever been able to do. Alethi tyrants tried and failed, but nothing works like a common enemy.” If Watchmen and Code Geass taught me nothing else, it was this. In those stories, however, the villains had altruistic motivations. They killed people in an attempt to unite the rest. Abidi the Monarch and Taravangian do not have any such motives. They plan to rule this world, not sacrifice themselves to unite it. Kaladin “Regardless, please keep your children’s rhymes and songs to yourself. The adults are trying to save the world.” Ouch. Well, Kaladin, copying Wit’s homework isn’t going to work for you on this one. You’re gonna have to do this one on your own. His worth did not come from whether he helped. Only in whether he tried. It’s in the effort that the value lies, not the acceptance or success/failure of that effort. Gavinor “For twenty years, I remembered.” Poor, poor Gavinor. Who can blame him for feeling the way he does? He’s spent twenty years being brainwashed by Taravangian. “He told me you’d say that,” Gavinor replied. “That you’d treat me like a child, incapable of making choices.” Taravangian really did plan for everything. Of course, Dalinar would treat Gav this way; to Dalinar, his grandson still is a child. He hasn’t had time to mentally shift his perspective, to come to terms with the fact that this young man has decades of learned experience and is a man, not a child. Dalinar “You will save Alethkar—and protect the cosmere from my influence—with one simple act: the murder of an innocent.” Here’s that pesky trolley problem again. An impossible choice; a terrible one. Neturo But the eyes… the eyes were crying. I cannot imagine how hard of a life this man has lived, always trying to protect his only son, then being forced to try to kill him. Rlain Rlain looked down, attuning Joy, then found that feeling remarkable. How normal it felt, how easily he’d responded to that touch, how much he enjoyed it. He’s spent his life having his romantic feelings denied and reviled by society, thinking that it was wrong, that love was something he’d never be able to have. How beautiful that he’s found such joy and acceptance with Renarin. And such a powerful parallel, in terms of positive representation, for so many LGBTQIA youths. Two thousand years in a prison. Betrayed, hating all humankind, she still hoped for freedom—and she knew if no one ever found her, she’d never get out. If anyone was going to empathize with a lonely, lost soul… it’s these two. Mishram chose well. Ishar “I’ve observed that in you and the others,” Ishar said. “But I have become the Almighty, and have withstood the darkness.” Unlike Szeth, Ishar is unable to recognize his flaws. Overall Thoughts: I often reflect upon how the world changed that day. And how I spent it, completely unaware, working in the family orchard. Picking fruit while the End of All Things itself came upon us. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 92 This is something that I’ve been pondering a lot lately. Even while a nation is torn by war, or tyranny, or natural disaster, people still need to live. We have to go to work and earn a paycheck and do chores and shop for food, because life doesn’t stop just because the world is falling apart around us. Sometimes it can be hard to remember that, during times of great turmoil, the majority of the regular folks are still doing the same things they always do in order to get by. Drew’s Commentary: Invested Arts & Theories We’re well and truly into the climactic chapters of the book, now, with things moving fast and furiously. That said, one of the first bits that made me raise my eyebrows was from a quieter moment: When Derethil—then so old he could not walk without the help of his grandson—told me his tale. Much of it was embellishments, I expect. I’ve searched for the islands he mentioned, and although my methods are not exhaustive, I could not find them. You might recall that I theorized earlier in the book about how Derethil’s story could indeed be true. The fact that Ishar looked for the islands and failed to find them only reinforces my belief. Ishar is locked onto Roshar at this point, incapable of leaving—of course he’d be unable to find where Derethil went. One possible wrinkle in this is that, well… this IS Ishar. He’s the guy who engineered the exodus from Ashyn to Roshar, he’s the Bondsmith with knowledge of perpendicularities, etc. If any Herald would think of the possibility for inter-Cosmere travel, you’d think it’s him. But it’s also possible that he simply didn’t consider the possibility for such a lesser being as Derethil to have made it into Shadesmar. “I subsume that power and make it mine. I corrupt it.” Okay, so obviously this is Ishar being woefully wrong, but it raises a question. What would it take to corrupt the Investiture of Odium? Investiture corrupting other Investiture is a long-running theme in the Cosmere at this point, but it’s always portrayed as an evil thing, engineered by antagonistic Shards like Odium and Autonomy. The color red is the major signifier, and of course red has plenty of its own real-world connotations for us to grapple with. But is it something inherent to so-called “evil” Shards like Odium and Autonomy that they can easily corrupt Investiture? Does it have to be a Shard? Ishar is incredibly Invested, after all, so why is it that he wasn’t able to truly co-opt Odium’s Investiture? It can’t be a matter of Intent—Ishar was very clear in his desire to create of himself a new god. Maybe it’s just because he’s dealing with Herald Insanity Syndrome. I dunno. I hope that we see more instances of corrupted Investiture as we head into a new era of the Cosmere, and get a better understanding of how and why it works. Not much more to say here, as these chapters were largely just action and a few plot progression beats—unless you all want me to get into the many, many problems I have with Adolin’s duel against Abidi. Maybe I’ll dig into that next week, when things come to a head in the Azish throne room… Fan theories via Social Media: Lyn: I recently came across an interesting Facebook post in the Stormlight Archive group, written by Jonathan Eccker. I found it to be an excellent analysis of both Szeth and Dalinar, making a case that Dalinar also exhibits neurodivergent characteristics. Jonathan argues that Szeth’s neurodivergence has been pretty well documented and explored, but Dalinar’s potential for the same is not. I highly recommend giving the whole post a read if you’ve already joined the Stormlight Archive group, but if you’re not a member and/or don’t do Facebook, here’s an excerpt that I found particularly interesting: [Dalinar] is the opposite side of the coin from Szeth. His route was one of hyper-empathy. He attempted to over-compensate for what he viewed as a distinct lack of empathy from his younger self, leading him to overrationalize the actions and emotions of others.Hyper-empathy tends to create pretty solid leaders; they are good at getting quick reads on others’ mental states and GREAT at understanding the nuances of social organizations without being explained them. They are bad at saying no and are very prone to serving the ones they lead.But when it leans too far into analytical processing and disregards holistic instinct, it’s susceptible to severe executive dysfunction (basically his entire story in Way of Kings).It’s actually poetic, to some extent, that Szeth’s arc was originally to assassinate Dalinar; hyper-rationalization versus hyper-empathy is, I can say, a somewhat familiar mental battle in the journey to re-embracing holistic intuition. I don’t quite agree with all of Jonathan’s points and hypotheses in the post, but this part is fascinating and not an angle I’ve seen discussed before. Thanks for your permission to include it, Jonathan! 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 133 through 136![end-mark] The post <i>Wind and Truth</i> Reread: Chapters 130-132 appeared first on Reactor.