On this week’s reread, Dalinar is visiting Vedenar… and his past. He’s slowly spiralling down into depression and what I suspect is PTSD, and it’s so very hard for us as readers to watch. Generally speaking, a character needs to hit rock bottom before they can begin the upwards trajectory of their arc, and Dalinar’s not there yet… but he’s heading that way, and fast. Join Alice and I as we walk alongside Dalinar on this descent and try to pick apart some nuances.

[This represented the third man he’d been.]

1. [They won’t let me ride one of the flying spren.]

Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread, where we get to watch a game of Skybreaker Paintball with Szeth and his fellow Skybreaker squires. Swoop! Also, Nalan shows up, being as obnoxiously mysterious and arrogant as usual.

[I am sorry to have won this contest, as I did the one with the prison.]

Our heroes in Shadesmar have made it to the lighthouse, seeking a means of travel across the ocean of beads. But what will they find there? Giant toads with strangely good comedic timing? Fashionable clothing? Corrupted spren? Strange visions of the future? Or all of the above? Tune in to this week’s reread and find out!

[“Wait! Wait, I have questions!”]

Hey! Hey, listen! (If you want a chuckle, check out Sanderson’s latest tweet about Legend of Zelda.) Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread, for an excursion into international politics. Will the coalition come together, or will it disintegrate into squabbling before it ever accomplishes anything? And what does your choice of seating say about you? All this and more as we join Navani in the council chamber at the top of Urithiru.

[Today, she’d taken a huge step towards unifying Roshar. Yet she felt more powerless than ever.]

Get out your bottles (small or otherwise), because this week’s a long one. And a difficult one, if we’re being honest. Adolin and Kaladin are both struggling with some pretty heavy issues in their own ways, and Past!Dalinar is deep in the throes of alcoholism. It’s not easy to see our favorite characters in such hardship, but of course they must hit bottom before they can start clawing their way back up.

[I don’t know how to be free of this. Help me. Help me…]

Welcome back to the Oathbringer reread, where the questions of the hour are morality and just what the heck is going on with Nightblood? And Nightblood means Szeth, and Szeth means Skybreakers, and Skybreakers mean… what the heck is going on up there by the Purelake?

[DESTROY! EVIL!]

Greetings fellow travelers! Join Alice and I in welcoming back Szeth to the pages of the Stormlight Archive! It’s been a long time since we’ve seen him (last time was in Edgedancer) and he’s definitely found himself in unusual surroundings, having fallen in with the Skybreakers. And speaking of unusual surroundings, Kaladin and company are still trapped in Shadesmar. Let’s check in with them and see how everyone’s favorite bridgeboy is doing, shall we?

[Why, then, did he still weep in the night, terrified?]

Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread! This week, our inadvertent explorers give us our first in-depth look at Shadesmar, the Cognitive realm. Oh, wait, Adolin fell into the depths last time we saw them. This time, they just have to figure out how to get away from the dangers surrounding them without falling in. Good luck with that, kids.

[Today, Adolin Kholin was nothing.]

This week, we launch into Part Four, titled “Defy! Sing Beginnings!” We’ll attempt to figure out what that means, if anything, over the next weeks. Today, though, we go back in time with Dalinar, who has developed some serious issues with life, the universe, and everything.

[It was only getting worse.]

Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread! This week we’ll be hunting rats on the Herdazian border, then storming around the edges of Kholinar, as we cover the last two interludes in the third section before diving back into the main story next week.

[The wrong sister had died. The wrong sister had lived.]

Well, now that we’re done recapping Parts 1-3, we’re excited to dive back into the story proper! This week we’ll be covering the first three interlude chapters of this section. We’ll spend most of our time with Venli, with a brief stop to see how laundry is best done. Thrilling, I know. It’s worthwhile to note that, though we’re all super excited about the reading Sanderson did at SDCC, we will not be discussing it or any aspects of it here in the reread (and we ask that you don’t in the comments, either). Many readers enjoy going into the next book of the series entirely blind, and we wouldn’t want to spoil anything for them. So please be considerate and keep your comments about unreleased material to the Tor postings specifically regarding them!

[The day now belongs to you.]

We’ve finished Part Three (::sob::), so we’re going to do something different with the Oathbringer Reread to celebrate the occasion. We’ll take a look back at what we’ve covered so far, starting with the “recap” parts in the beginning and then going on to discuss the epigraphs in depth, major themes, unanswered questions and theories, and interesting tidbits we came across. Batten down the hatches, folks. It’s about to get intense up in here!

[United, New Beginnings Sing; Defying Truth, Love Truth…]

Welcome back to the Reread! We were planning to do a big “the book so far” wrap-up post this week in addition to chapter Eighty-Seven, but… it was a little too big, so we’ll have an entire article next week dedicated to that. In the meantime, we’ll discuss Chapter Eighty-Seven all on its lonesome, as well as discuss a few points that people requested in the comment section last week. Batten down the hatches, folks. It’s about to get intense up in here!

[… toward a small, distant sun.]