Rhythm of War Speculation or What I’m Hoping for Before I Start Reading

Guys! It’s tomorrow! Finally! Less than a day from now I’ll have in my hands Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson! Too many exclamation points, gotta calm down… deep breath. 

I know it’s a little crazy to jump into something like this when I literally started this page yesterday. But I wanted to get a few things in writing. So I can be appropriately mocked or applauded when I know the answers. If you have no idea what’s going on here, it really just means you’re a normal person. Promise. And this will not be the kind of thing I normally post; except when a big shiny new book in an amazing series comes out. Which this year is about… 4 times total. And this is the biggest one of all.

Okay, so before the launch (at least in this country) I wanted to set out some of my hopes/expectations/ideas for the new book. It is a long book, over 450K words. So there is a lot that can be expected from it, I think. It has been 3 years and 3 days since the last book released, which is a LONG time for theorizing and digesting. Here are my ideas. 

Knowing this is the fourth book in a 5 book arc of story gives some expectations. The ending is going to be spectacular, as they all are. But it will not necessarily be happy or wrap things up the way you really want it to. There needs to be some imminent peril to drive us to the conclusion of book 5. I have also heard from multiple sources that book 4 is the darkest we have seen yet. I’m not expecting sunshine and rainbows here. But I am hopeful for some things. Here are my most closely held hopes...

Characters:

Kaladin: I really really want him to work through his depression and be able to function. I’d LOVE to see a Fourth Ideal from him by the end of the book. But he was left pretty broken at the end of Oathbringer. We will see. I at least hope that Syl will be her normal helpful chipper self and maybe help him through the darkest bits. 

Shallan: Oh baby. (Pun possibly intended?) I just hope she has no baby. Please let her not have a baby! Figuring out how to get all her personalities back into one would be nice, but I’m not sure she’s stable and willing to work on that yet. She definitely wasn’t when we last saw her. At least she chose Adolin, so that is (maybe? I think?) out of the way.

Dalinar: well, he was amazing in the last book. I don’t expect to see as much of him as we did in OB. I’m guessing the whole ‘High King’ stuff got worked out in the timelapse, so he will be busy leading Radiants and… whatever else Bondmiths are supposed to do. But it won’t be front and center, whatever it is. 

Adolin: He got the girl, I hope that’s going well. And I hope he is officially Highprince now. But Storms, I really just want him to wake up Maya and be the Edgedancer I’ve been dreaming of. 

Navani: I love this woman! She has done amazing things already and I don’t think she’s done yet. I really want her to bond the Sibling and wake up Urithiru (assuming both of those go together…). I want to see her as queen, mom, wife, grandma, AND Radiant. 

Szeth: I WANT MORE SHINOVAR!! Please go cleanse the Shin of their mistaken beliefs and bring them to our side. This is most likely something that will be in book 5, but a girl can wish right?

Bridge 4: I want to be all leveled up to the Second or Third (and maybe someone gets Fourth?) Ideals, and all with their own Squires. I want to see a huge air battle or ten. 

Other Radiants (Jasnah, Renarin, Venli, etc): I want to see powers and awesomeness. Especially from Renarin.

Plot:

This is the part I’m always worst at predicting. Even when I have a general idea of what’s coming. And really I love it, but here are a few things that i would like to see.

I want them kicking some Voidbringer (okay, mostly Fused) booty. I want the coalition to hold and maybe grow. From the cover, we know Shallan and Adolin visit Shadesmar again and I’m excited to see how that goes. I hope the Honorspren listen to them so we get SO many more Windrunners. I want (in vain, I know) for Taravangian to stop being a traitor and help them for reals. I also would like, adding to this pipe dream, for the Heralds to be sane and able to lead again. But settling for Ash and maybe Taln to be occasionally helpful and maybe Radiant as well would be a good realistic goal. 

And lastly, I want Cosmere answers. I want in a week to be able to have answers to many of the questions we just don’t know enough to answer now. I want to see how the results of Dawnshard play out with the rest of the world. I want new and amazing Worldhoppers. 

I know it’s a lot to ask, but these are just a few of the things that have literally kept me up thinking in circles the last weeks and years. But really, I’m most looking forward to spending a few days with my face in a book on an adventure away from real world politics and current events. (I hear there’s a pandemic in the book though, so maybe this won’t work out so well.) I’m looking forward to feeling like I don’t know anything that’s going on in this universe again and having an excuse to reread everything I already reread this year.

I know several of you already know the answers to all of it. That’s fine. Hope you had a great laugh. And next week I will laugh as well looking back over what actually happened and where I was super off base. It’s all good. “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?” as Mr Bennet says in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

RoW cover art copyright Tor. or maybe Dragonsteel. Painted by Michael Whelan