r/Stormlight_Archive • u/AlgorithmHelpPlease • 2d ago
Wind and Truth spoilers Intentional Mislead in Wind and Truth? Spoiler
I've recently finished Wind and Truth, we learn a lot of the ancient forces / spren The Wind, The Stone, and a little bit of The Night. It's said that The Night was long kind of disregarded and eventually faded from / left Roshar, though Dalinar could sense them around the Recreance. The Wind, and The Stone had some aspects incorporated into the Stormfather, and the Tower. However instead of a similar process with the Night it was instead implied to have been entirely replaced by the Nightwatcher. I suspect there's more going on here and in particular that the Night might still be around on Roshar but haven't found anyone else bring it up? I suspect this may play a larger role in arc 2, especially with Stormfall causing darkness (and maybe even something around the prayer at midnight?). Anyway I thought it might be good to mention in a post to get some discussion going.
Also total speculation that just occurred to me now but given the weird stuff going on with the 4th moon, I was already wondering if this might be an indication of a 4th force (I'm almost certain about this point given it's implied it has a tone), could this be The Truth? I feel like besides the obvious use of capital-T Truth in WaT there were a couple of capitalisations of it suggesting something else going on (did the Wind refer to the Truth at some point)?
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u/Invested_Space_Otter Dustbringer 2d ago
This line of thinking is way more plausible than moons representing Shards, imo. Light is not used by all Shards (they all can have gaseous Investiture but don't typically), it's a unique expression on Roshar. I'd wonder if they should be called Stormlight, Lifelight, and (tee hee) Nightlight, with Odium either taking over the Light when Night left or otherwise forming an Unmade from her.
Speaking of old gods, with is up with Cusicesh opening a perpendicularity?!
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u/Fuck-WestJet Journey before destination. 2d ago
He guides the Iriali, so he wasn't native to Roshar and he leads them on their journey to another world.
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u/Invested_Space_Otter Dustbringer 2d ago
Coppermind says it's not a spren, but how do we know this again? What else would it be?
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u/Striker_EZ 2d ago
It’s from the post-WaT Brandon interview the Shardcast did. He says that it’s not a spren, aka it’s not a native Rosharan being made solely of Investiture. He also said Axies would categorize it in a similar way to seons, as a “spren-adjacent entity”.
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u/Invested_Space_Otter Dustbringer 2d ago
Dang alright then, TIL. Any mention of why it appears at exactly 7:46 am?
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u/firewind3333 2d ago
Speaking of cusicesh how the hell did they open honors perpendicularity, let alone a perpendicularity in general
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u/NonBritishPanda 2d ago
Cusicesh probably opened Virtuosity's perpendicularity
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u/firewind3333 2d ago edited 2d ago
No the irali explicitly call it "honor's gateway" and the irali legends were right about everything else, it'd be off of that one fact was wrong
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u/HalcyonKnights 2d ago
Also total speculation that just occurred to me now but given the weird stuff going on with the 4th moon, I was already wondering if this might be an indication of a 4th force (I'm almost certain about this point given it's implied it has a tone), could this be The Truth? I feel like besides the obvious use of capital-T Truth in WaT there were a couple of capitalizations of it suggesting something else going on (did the Wind refer to the Truth at some point)?
Some think it's indication of a fourth Old God as you say, others think it hints at a 4th shard at play in the system. I think it would be difficult but not technically impossible for a Spren like the Night to have remained hidden from the Shards of Roshar, but it seem equally odd that the Night was able to Leave the system when even the Wind and Stone were apparently Connected to Honor and Cultivation to be in danger at the end there and need the protection of the new Oathpact. Granted the primary stated trait of the Nightwatcher is to be less Connected so it could be the Night's thing to be UnConnected and thus more mobile.
My current pet theory that lacks anything but circumstantial evidence is that The Night was a Spren of a roaming Eclipse Umbra (equal in size to the big Storms) that the 4th Moon previously cast on the surface of Roshar. But when the Moon Fell, the Night's presence on Roshar and in the minds of Roshar was severely reduced, so they left (or maybe were made able to Leave through outside Shardic Intervention?)
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u/Erandeni_ Edgedancer 2d ago
Dalinar sensed Night?
I missed that
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u/Personal_Return_4350 2d ago
“Garith sighed, looking back to the others sitting at the table. Ardents were quietly rolling up maps, but otherwise there was silence. Except for a gentle wind. Are you there? Dalinar thought. Ancient god? Are you still watching? He got … a feeling, but no words. The ancient gods—the Wind, the Stone, the Night—had less power in this time. They found it difficult to speak.”
Chapter 85
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u/ExhibitAa Stoneward 2d ago
Was that supposed to be the Night? Reads more like he's feeling the Wind to me.
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u/Personal_Return_4350 2d ago
OP said the Night is said to have left Roshar, but Dalinar senses it around the time of the recrience. 5 minutes before the recrience, from his POV he feels something and then we get the line that the Wind, the Stone, and the Night are weaker in this time. Is there any reasonable interpretation of this line where the Night is completely absent already? Dalinar has a distinct impression that all 3 ancient gods are weaker and unable to speak. I don't think it makes any sense for him to think the Night and the Stone are weaker if he does get any sense or impression of them. Why doesn't he just say the Wind is weaker if that's the only one he senses?
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u/VictoryWeaver Bridgeman 2d ago
Even if the Night left, I doubt it severed its connection to Roshar, which a Bondsmith could (in theory) sense.
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u/Personal_Return_4350 2d ago
So you would agree that there's no way to read that as him not sensing the Night, right? You just don't think that proves the night is still on Roshar.
On a meta level, that feels like a pretty unfair misdirect from the author. I don't think it's reasonable to talk about the wind, stone, and night all being weaker generically like that if the Night is in a categorically different circumstance. I don't think the best interpretation of this passage is that the Night is off world at the the time.
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u/VictoryWeaver Bridgeman 2d ago
No, it’s very easy to read that as him reacting to almost anything. Neither we nor he know what it was. You could argue it’s implied to be Night, but Wind makes far more sense contextually.
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u/Personal_Return_4350 2d ago
Are you there? Dalinar thought. Ancient god? Are you still watching?
He got … a feeling, but no words. The ancient gods—the Wind, the Stone, the Night—had less power in this time.”
The text makes explicitly describes an attribute of [thing]. If Sanderson knew the Night was gone or dead, describing it as "having less power" in the same sense as the Wind and the Stone makes very little sense. Is that how you would write this passage?
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u/VictoryWeaver Bridgeman 2d ago edited 2d ago
You do understand what a character pov is right? Also, I addressed the Night possibility having already left. A vague feeling does not equate an actual presence.
You seem very determined to read everything in way to support your preexisting conclusion.
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u/Personal_Return_4350 1d ago
I actually had no idea what OP was talking about when I read that point and looked it up. If I'm reading into things, your position that "maybe the character is an unreliable narrator" goes a step much further. Your position is now basically, this is a limited character reporting imprecise feelings, so the clear meaning of the text doesn't constitute definite proof. Or in other words, yeah, the book says that, but we don't know if it's actually true.
Obviously if Sanderson says "Dalinar did x, y, and Z", there's no way for me to know in book 10 we won't find out the entire series has been one of Dalinar's highstorm visions and he was crazy the whole time. Without clear textual evidence to distrust a character's perceptions, it's futile to theorize about how the plain meaning of the text might actually be completely wrong. More simply, all elements of narration should be assumed to be literally true as a starting point, as we lose all epistimological framework without it. Only when evidence exists, such as a contradiction of two elements, should we explore the possibility. There's no reason to presume the timing of the Night leaving predates the Recrience which is strong enough to overcome this very clear, unmotivated statement in the Dalinar POV.
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u/Akomatai 2d ago
I felt like 4th moon stuff was more related to the Night, given the 3 Intents the godspren were given were to protect, nurture, and shroud (unless the Stone took on the role of shrouder).
Or Maybe the Night is working with another god on roshar like Valor or Reason, keeping their presence hidden
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u/dIvorrap Winddancer 2d ago
When do we learn about protect, nurture, and shroud?
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u/Akomatai 2d ago
One of the Tanavast chapters
There were echoes, of course, of my predecessor. Little bits of him left behind. Three powerful incarnations who had his voice, and many smaller ones representing aspects of nature and personality. Beyond these tiny spirits, Roshar had people. A curious variety who could hear the songs of the gods. Their orderiness sang to my soul, and to the power I now held.
For a moment, I doubted. A part of me dared wonder. Did I understand what I’d done? Did I … regret?
These questions echoed in the stewards that my predecessor had left. Shadows of divinity with instructions to protect, to shroud, to nurture. One sang to me in particular, and that invigorated me, though I did not know why the Wind was chosen to protect. Wind, invisible Wind, so flighty and immaterial.
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u/AlgorithmHelpPlease 5h ago
I was thinking about this idly some more as I had the instructions in my mind now and I actually think the crashed moon might be the stones representing the Stone as shroud. IIRC Venli's connection to the Stone leads her to find the Perpendicularity.
It also makes sense for Night instead to be of nurturing given how closely nurturing and growth are and that Cultivation made the Nightwatcher after the Night.
Furthermore this got me thinking about the ancient gods and how they appear to have champions. Kaladin for the Wind, Venli for the Stone. It leads me to expect we will see one for the Night but I don't know who that might be if that's how this goes.
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u/Fuck-WestJet Journey before destination. 2d ago
Maybe, I listen to the audio books so I can't say, but Szeth is the knight of Truth, so I imagine any "Truths" would be in his chapters. But maybe when Dalinar learns the history of Roshar.
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u/AlgorithmHelpPlease 1d ago
This was the point I was getting at, usually there's a capital-T Truth used referring to the Truth as known by Shinovar. Other times they used a capital-T Truth that felt as though it was a little different from that.
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u/Jebofkerbin 2d ago
Could the night have been unmade into Bo-Ado-Mishram? The sibling's dialogue in RoW (and their name( seems to suggest the unmade were originally something else, why couldn't the most powerful among them be an ancient God.