TWoK Readalong, Chapter 1 and 2.

Oh my god.

I read this without stopping/typing up anything, and instead I stuck sticky notes on all the stuff I thought was interesting, funny, awesome, awesome, and more awesome.

Chapter 1, Stormblessed.

Beginning:

“You’ve killed me. Bastards, you’ve killed me! While the sun is still hot, I die!”

-  Collected on the fifth day of the week of the Chach of the month of Betab of the year 1171, ten seconds before death. Subject was a darkeyed soldier thirty-one years of age. Sample is considered questionable.

Year 1171. Same as the one in the prologue, and chapter two. I’m not even going to bother with the months and the weeks.

Chapter one is five years after the murder of King Gavilar. There’s some war going on now, and we’re following a 15 year old guy named Cenn, who is scared like hell because he’ll be joining, and he’s only had around three months of training, and he thinks he’ll die. Dallet tells him he’s going to be fine, because he’s in Kaladin Stormblessed’s squad.

Kaladin is only around 19, and he seems to have paid to get Cenn on his squad.

His black Alethi hair was shoulder-length and wavy, his eyes a dark brown.

Do all Alethi have black/dark hair? This lighteyes, darkeyes thing is really confusing me, but I’m hoping it gets cleared up soon. From the last chapter, I know that darkeyes are not allowed to carry swords. And here, it seems that they carry spears. Lighteyes, though, have full armor, ride horses, have good breastplates… etc.

“Sure,” Dallet said. “But most of the men don’t have much more training than you. Those who can fight well end up getting sent to the Shattered Plains to battle the Parshendi. Kaladin’s trying to get us into shape to go there, to fight for the king.”

Shattered Plains and Parshendi—oh! Szeth!

Actually, I don’t know. Moving on.

Kaladin reminds me of Kelsier. I imagine him the same way too. Okay, I need to talk about chapter two, because I found that much more fun. Basically, what happens here is that Cenn goes in with Kaladin’s squad, things are good, things are good, things are okay, and then suddenly things are confusing, and then Cenn gets hit, and then Kaladin rescues him, and then they see a lighteye officer/noble/I don’t know what, and Kaladin goes off to kill him because if he kills him then they’ll be sent to the Shattered Plains to fight with the others (I thought of this like, you know in a video game if you kill the boss dude, you get more exp? God, I’m weird, but I just think this would be awesome as a video game) and…

What was I talking about?

Oh, right. Then as Cenn is lying on the ground surrounded by the others watching out for him, he hears thunder, and a Shardbearer appears, and because the chapter ends, Imma guess things don’t go well.

Cenn had never seen a Shardbearer, but he knew immediately what this was. How could he ever have mistaken a simple armoured lighteyes for one these majestic creatures?

 …

 It was like… like the Almighty himself had taken form to walk on the battlefield.

  And why would you want to fight the Almighty?

  Cenn closed his eyes.  

So… he’s dead? By the way, I was thinking, if I ever do try to write fantasy or something, I’d try to make the made up words/names a bit different from each other so they wouldn’t get confusing. I mean, really, take a look at this:

• Shardbearers
• Shardblades
• Shattered Plains
• Shortspears
• Kaladin
• Kelek
• Kalak

And there’s probably about two dozen more – I’m only on page 47. It’s so easy for people like me to get all this mixed up. Unless there’s a very good reason that they have names that sound the same, god, please don’t do this.

Okay, about time I start talking about chapter two. Oh my, I loved this one.

The quotes. Right, the quotes. It’s a lighteyed this time.

“Ten orders. We were loved, once. Why have you forsaken us, Almighty! Shard of my soul, where have you gone?”

- Collected on the second day of Kakash, year 1171, five seconds before death. Subject was a lighteyed woman in her third decade.

Another of the same year. Are they all going to be the year 1171? (Oh, and Kakash – add that to the list. It not only has the K sound, it also has the SH.)

Eight months later, Kaladin is being transported as a slave, and he has three brands/glyphs on his forehead (burned?). Seems like Kaladin’s the only who can read them, which makes him interesting to the other slaves. Also the fact that he tried to escape ten times, and that he has managed to escape before. Okay, can I just skip all this and talk about this ‘windspren’ instead?

Of course I can. Who’s gonna stop me?

So there’s this spren thingy that’s been following Kaladin, and when he’s thinking about how to use the leaves he’s been hiding (don’t ask, this world has interesting plants and creatures though) to kill their sellers or whatever they may be, she pops in, and starts talking to him.

 A translucent figure—just a handspan tall—peeked up from over the edge of the floor near Kaladin … The windspren had taken the shape of a young woman—larger spren could change shapes and sizes—with an angular face and long, flowing hair that faded into mist behind her head. She … was formed of pale blues and whites and wore a simple, flowing white dress of a girlish cut that came down to midcalf.

Me right about there:

OH MY GOD THAT’S SO CUTE. It’s like a tiny little fairy – except not a fairy but something totally different—aaah, I don’t have time to scream with joy yet. They could turn out evil in the end, who knows?

Oh, but that little creature wandering in just made me so happy. She knows Kaladin’s name too, and she’s all like, hey watcha got there? And he’s like IGNORE, and she’s like, “Kaladin, why must you ignore me?” and he’s like STORM YOU! SPIRIT HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?

Storm you. I like that. Is that the same as damn you? So, if say I could damn people to hell, and I say DAMN YOU, but I really mean, like God damn you, would STORM YOU be like me commanding tsunamis, thunderbolts, hail, rain, tornadoes, and blizzards on them? Because that would be awesome.

Oh, yeah, so back to the little spren knowing Kaladin’s name. He says that spren aren’t intelligent, they don’t know names, they aren’t supposed to know names, they don’t think and they don’t remember.

                “Why don’t you fight? You did before. Now you’ve stopped.”

                “Why do you care, spirit?”

                She cocked her head. “I don’t know,” she said, as if surprised at herself. “But I do. Isn’t that odd?”

                …

                “How do you know my name?” he whispered.

                “How do you know it?”

                “I know it because… because it’s mine. My parents told it to me. I don’t know.”

                “Well I don’t either,” she said, nodding as if she’d just won some grand argument.

                “Fine,” he said. “But why are you using my name?”

                “Because it’s polite. And you are impolite.”

                “Spren don’t know what that means!”

                “See, there,” she said, pointing at him. “Impolite.”

Omgomgomgomg – can I have her please? Can I? CAN I PLEASE HAVE HER?

We have cats and dogs and birds and all other fluffy animals as pets. Not that I have anything against them, but if I had this spren, I would take very good care of her and I’d be happy forever. This makes me so sad. WHY CAN’T I HAVE THIS SPIRIT/SPREN?

Anyways, there’s this sick slave in the cart along with Kaladin and the others. I think Kaladin’s been trained by his father as some sort of physician/mediciner (that’s not a word) or whatever they have here in this world, so he keeps thinking of ways they could cure him. He never does anything, though, because he thinks he’s cursed and that every time he tries to help someone, they end up dying. Finally, he cracks, and he tells the slave seller… lookout… guy, Tvlakv, that the sick man has some grinding cough sickness thingy – I’m sorry, I’m terrible — and that all he needs is some water every few hours.

Tvlakv (how the F do you even pronounce that?) takes the guy out, and Kaladin’s like, oh look, seems like I can do some good after all.

And then Tvlakv beheads the sick man.

I’ll admit, I kind of laughed here. Just a little bit. I know it’s sad, I do, but – okay, maybe I just don’t have emotions sometimes.

Damn. Maybe poor Kaladin is cursed.

I loved this chapter. Can’t wait to read the next one.