Rhythm of War

Dalinar Kholin is King of Urithiru, leader of the Knights Radiant, and the head of the Alethkar alliance of monarchs brought together by Dalinar’s brother, Gavilar. As a younger man, Dalinar was an incredibly skilled but brutal fighter, falling prey during battle to a supernatural power called the Thrill—actually an ancient and malicious spren defeated at the end of Oathbringer. After his brother’s murder, Dalinar abandoned his heavy drinking and lost his passion for fighting; seeking to live more honorably, he has attempted to transform Alethi culture away from its warlord roots. At the same time, Dalinar’s magical powers increased, giving him visions that connect him to the most powerful spren and show him events of the past and future. After facing his sins, including the accidental killing of his first wife, Dalinar married his brother’s widow, Navani, whom he had always loved, and pushed the coalition of monarchs to save Roshar from the evil god Odium. In Rhythm of War, Dalinar works to understand his growing magical abilities and to further strengthen his bond with his spren, the Stormfather—one of the three most powerful spren on the planet.

Navani, titled the Queen Mother, is the widow of former king Gavilar and the wife of current king Dalinar. She and Dalinar loved one another for many years, and their marriage challenges social norms, as Alethi tradition holds that they became siblings when she married Dalinar’s brother. Navani is the mother of Elokhar and Jasnah and the aunt and stepmother of Adolin and Renarin. Navani is a passionate and dedicated scholar-scientist whose main focus is on the creation of fabrials—magical devices that use spren energy to power mechanical and quasi-electronic technology. In Rhythm of War, Navani faces a complex dynamic: After she surrenders to an invading Fused force, she collaborates with the occupiers on developing new and more complex uses for different kinds of Light, or magical energy. As she and the Fused fellow scientist Raboniel develop a rapport, Navani must navigate her belief that science should know no cultural boundaries and her political duty to resist the occupation.

Adolin Kholin is the son of Dalinar and the husband of Shallan. As heir to the throne, he has spent many years struggling to live up to his father’s expectations. Adolin is different than his father; although he values honor and treats those around him well, he is lighthearted, willing to bend the rules, and interested in “less serious” things like fashion. Nevertheless, Adolin is protective of those he cares about—a responsibility that led him to kill the traitorous highlord Sadeas in Words of Radiance. Since then, Adolin has struggled with the ramifications of this action. In Rhythm of War, as he and Shallan develop a more honest relationship and share the darker aspects of their past, he learns to accept himself and reject earlier feelings of shame for disappointing his father.

Born into lower-ranked nobility and orphaned at a young age, Shallan became the ward of Jasnah Kholin, Dalinar’s niece and stepdaughter, who helped Shallan develop and hone her magical powers. To keep Shallan’s powers within the family, Jasnah worked to arrange a marriage between the girl and Adolin Kholin, Dalinar’s son and the heir to the throne. The courtship was successful, and the pair ended up in a loving relationship. Shallan’s magical powers play into the fantasy version of dissociative identity disorder symptoms: After being abused by her parents in childhood, and then killing both her mother and father in self-defense, Shallan suppressed these painful and shameful memories and forged them into splintered guises called personas. Shallan then inhabited these three separate personas, which have their own skills, values, and desires; often when she is feeling psychologically vulnerable, Shallan will force a persona to take over her body while she retreats. In Rhythm of War, however, Shallan finally faces her past, lessens her use of her personas to protect herself from it, and is honest with her husband about the many harmful secrets she has kept.

Jasnah Kholin is the daughter of Navani and Gavilar Kholin, the cousin of Adolin, and the niece and stepdaughter of Dalinar. Although Jasnah follows certain social expectations to the letter, she is well-known for flouting tradition: She is a scholar of history and a well-known atheist and critic of the Vorin Church. After the death of her brother, she was named Queen of Alethkar; in the role, she hopes to make important social changes, such as ending some aspects of Alethi honor culture. In Rhythm of War, Dalinar finally embraces some of Jasnah’s convictions, showing his trust in her ideas when he asks her to write the undertext commentary of his memoir.

These are some of the novel’s most important spren, or sapient creatures made out of small fragments of the godlike beings called Shards that created Roshar. All of these spren have bonded with key Radiant characters and play large roles in the novel both in concert with their bonded humans and on their own.

Sylphrena, or Syl, is an honorspren who appeared to Kaladin in the first novel, when he was enslaved. She is the most social of the spren, lighthearted and curious about humans. She most often appears as a small, translucent, blue woman but changes shape often. Most honorspren distrust humans because they believe that the ancient Knights Radiant betrayed spren thousands of years ago, but Syl breaks tradition by becoming the first honorspren to bond with a human. In Rhythm of War, Syl’s personal journey centers on Kaladin. Worried about his depression and the fact that she does not know how to help him, Syl gains newfound understanding of human psychology from the Sibling, an ancient spren that powers Urithiru tower and battles Fused corruption. As Syl recalls her earlier experiences with bonds, she and Kaladin open up to one another about their mental health challenges.

Shallan’s spren, Pattern, manifests as a puzzle-like image that moves across surfaces, often hiding in Shallan’s skirts. As a logicspren, Pattern finds and deciphers clues and helps Shallan uncover secrets; he is the perfect spren to aid in Shallan’s various spy missions, such as locating the hidden Herald in the spren city on the orders of the mysterious Ghostbloods. Unlike Syl, Pattern is mostly unemotional, so while he worries for Shallan’s psychological well-being, he does not intrude too deeply into her emotional life. In Rhythm of War, Pattern’s cool demeanor threatens to break up their bond, as Shallan accuses him of being a traitor who has been contacting the Ghostbloods’ leader behind her back. Eventually, however, Pattern is shown to be completely loyal and innocent—a discovery that strengthens his connection with Shallan.

The Stormfather is one of the three most powerful spren in Roshar—a group that also includes the Sibling. The Stormfather controls the destructive highstorms that rage across Roshar at regular intervals; as such, he manifests as a giant face in the sky. Although it is highly unusual for such a powerful spren to bond with anyone, the Stormfather bonds with Dalinar, giving Dalinar the magical ability to create a portal to Shadesmar, the realm of the spren. Dalinar’s portals allow Radiants to renew their Stormlight, or the source of their powers. The Stormfather is distrustful of humans; he is generally merciless and prizes strength and battle prowess. Because of this, in Rhythm of War, he is somewhat wary of Dalinar’s newfound desire to move Alethkar away from honor culture and toward a more equitable society.

Taravangian is king of the city-state Kharbranth and of the nation Jah Keved. Years before Rhythm of War, when he learned of the threat to Roshar from the evil godlike being Odium, Taravangian asked the ancient Odium-based spren named the Nightwatcher for a boon, knowing that it would be accompanied by a curse. Taravangain requested to receive the capacity to save humankind, which she provided by giving him great intelligence and great compassion, but never at the same time. On high-intellect days, Taravangian is a cold and calculating genius; on high-compassion days, he manifests symptoms of dementia. On one day of truly great genius, he foresaw all possible paths in the conflict with Odium and created the Diagram, a plan to save Roshar. Studying the Diagram led him to believe that there is no way to save all of humankind, so he chose the best possible solution: to make a deal with Odium to protect Kharbranth. Taravangian spent the first three novels of the series convinced of the rightness of his decision to do awful things to ensure the safety of his people. In Rhythm of War, however, he sees Odium’s human-like weaknesses and finds another option: kill Odium. Odium isn’t really killable—by destroying him in a vision, Taravangian is only killing his current vessel. In doing so, Taravangian becomes the next vessel for Odium, transforming the series antagonist into a nuanced being who has some of Taravangian’s earlier desire to save humanity and the urge to crush them.