No spoiler tags needed through the end of Rhythm of War. Naturally, much of the climax is at the end of the story so proceed with caution if you’re mostly through the book and think it’s a good idea to jump in!
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I’ll start by saying it’s tough to get the entire story without jumping in and finding online speculation about connections between books. I’m more than a casual reader but I don’t listen to each reference and try to tear it apart and find connections, which was fine until RoW and it seems things are getting more serious in that direction.
Thaidakar = Kelsier (enough clues dropped but I’d blown them off since we hadn’t met him yet)
“chickens” = aviar (that seemed obvious once I heard it)
white sand
breaths/perfect pitch
etc, etc. Not sure how meaningful some of these would be if you’d not read the other cosmere books. Possibly just fine?
Teft was sad, but not unexpected. Phendorana…barely knew her but my heart sank a bit.
Adolin and Maya – best relationship in the series by a long shot. If Sanderson does something GRR Martin-y to those two, I’m going to cry. They might not end up with a traditional radiant bond and that’s fine. Just nothing that separates them please. If you take one, take both.
I’ve added a few tags (trying to get that functionality to start sticking 
).
About 1/2 way through Words of Radiance and enjoying the series overall so far.
Wife got be the first three books as part of a set; so will have to look for the others that are out now.
Rhythm of War is the 4th book, so you aren’t too far behind. And you have a long way to go before the 5th is released. Fall 2023 is the current expectation (from the author).
I listened to this (got the hardback for Christmas but haven’t been able to start it yet), so my retention isn’t as great. I had to look it up to make sure I was remembering correctly that Thaidakar is the leader of the ghost bloods (Mraize’s boss). I never made the connection to Kelsier, but I guess he is still wandering around the cosmere.
What books have aviar?
I haven’t read the white sand books yet, so I guess I probably should to figure out what references I’m missing.
The tie in to Warbreaker I knew, but it was cool to see the breaths be used in a fight, albeit a test fight.
Overall, loved the book of course. I think it was easy to guess that Maya would eventually start talking given the events at the end of the third book, but it was still cool and I definitely didn’t guess what she was going to say. I had never thought about the spren being in on the recreance.
Aviar are from Sixth of the Dusk, one of the novellas included in Arcanum Unbounded.
I’d only read (listened to) the White Sands novella in Arc. Unbounded as well. The graphic novels in the White Sands series looked great but not a price point I was super interested in. Seems like they captured the key point there, which is that the sand reacts to investiture. They did not make the link in Stormlight that the investiture could be stored in the sand, but that was not relevant to the current story so it fit in nicely as “hey, here’s a new magic sand that measures stormlight”.
I am a bit curious where he’ll go with the epilogue. On the surface, New Odium tricked Wit and stole some memories. If that’s the main point, it would seem odd. Cultivation knows about New Odium, we know the Shards are in contact, and we know Harmony has been in contact with Wit. So, it seems he’d get word of the new vessel one way or the other, perhaps just a bit slower.
Or will it be more about how Wit was holding just enough breaths to know that one had been taken (no longer having perfect pitch) and thus he’d been tampered with? So part of a long game of his own, related to his story about the coins and mis-direction?
I do like how the Cultivation/Taravangian story is presented, wherein she put him in the position to take up the Odium vessel but she really didn’t know whether that would help, so all bets are off at this point. At first blush, T seems to have regained all his intelligence AND has a big range of emotion but seems to really be embracing the dark, murdery, revenge-thirsting side of things, a side which really hadn’t been seen in him before (cold and callous, but not intentionally hurtful). This might be a dark part of Taravangian or Odium’s nature overwhelming it’s emotionally vulnerable new host. RAFO, I guess.
That’s right. Thanks for the reminder!
Ah, I was wondering if I was missing something with the new “magic sand”. Thanks!