ITT Cyan Summarizes the Stormlight Archives by chapter

My copy of Way of Kings is actually up in a box somewhere right now but I've been wanting to make this thread since I showed my hand on being a massive fucking Cosmere stan.

Fortunately for me the first few chapters are actually up on TOR's website so I don't have to dig it out just yet.

Also I make no promises I won't lose steam on this. These books are massive and have a lot of chapters. Anyways, gonna start with book one, the Way of Kings. The cover looks like this.


(Reading the first chapter right now so I can make sure I don't miss any good shit in my summary.)

 

Prologue 1: 4500 years before the main story.

Okay so you've got these 10 guys. Well, half of them are ladies but still, they're basically this big superhero team with magic swords that have been fighting off massive desolations from ravaging planet Roshar for millennia. They are essentially immortal.

The planet gets attacked every so often by an evil god and his forces who are imprisoned on another planet in the solar system, called Braise.

The catch for these ten heroes is that whenever they defeat this god and his evil minions, they all get sent back to Braize and hold him there. The god and his minions torture them until one of them breaks, and then they all return to Roshar and the desolation begins again. Also, these heroes get sent back to Braise if they die on the battlefield during a desolation.

This entire arrangement is called the Oathpact.

The chapter begins with one of these heroes, his name is Kalak.


Kalak is standing over a battlefield, still on Roshar. The battle is over, people are miserable, but the desolation is over. There's a big rocky skeletal monster laying in the field called a thunderclast and Kalak hates those things.

Kalak is uncomfortable because he survived the battle. If he had died, he'd have been forced to go back to Braise with no say, but now that he survived to the end this time he is thinking about running away. Like, who the hell wants to go get tortured for possibly hundreds of years before somebody finally can't take it anymore and it starts another apocalypse on your homeworld? Who came up with this plan anyways?

He goes back to the meeting place and sees seven of the ten heroes swords driven into the ground and is like "k, that's weird. Those swords are magical and would have gone back to Braize too if the others died." And then his king, who is named Jezrien walks up to him.

Jezrien is like "I waited up for you but everyone else walked away." and Kalak confesses that he doesn't want to go back. Jezrien is like "Yeah well only one of us died this time and better he suffer by himself than all of us. The rest of us are dipping. Peace."

Kalak thinks it's crazy at first 'cause like, the evil god is just going to escape again. Jezrien is like maybe, or maybe our one guy will hold.

So they agree to walk away from the Oathpact, and publicly lie that they won for good this time and the evil god is just trapped on Braise forever. Then the two of them both leave their swords in the ground, making a circle of nine swords where there should be ten.

The name of the guy that stayed on Braise is Taln.

 

Prologue 2: To Kill a King
6 years before the main story

So you have this guy, his name is Szeth Son-Son Vallano. You see, today he's wearing all white, and he's going to kill a king.

Spoiler: Szeth Son Son Vallano wore white the day he was to kill a king.

Szeth right now is at a party, being mistaken for a servant man.

So he's at a party in the royal palace of Alethkar. The party is celebrating an alliance between the Alethi, who are kind of like the roman empire I guess only they're tall polynesian looking people, and the Parshendi, who are crab people. IDK @ToroidalBoat about these guys' blood, Parshendi have orange blood.

Anyways, Szeth scans the room, looking to account for the king's family. He sees the king's brother is passed out drunk, the king's son and heir is entertaining party guests, but his daughter he princess isn't there.

Szeth also notices the Parshendi are having a good time with the Alethi. They don't seem offended or uncomfortable with them in any way, which is weird since they're the ones that ordered he assassinate the king in the first place. But Szeth doesn't give a shit since he is not allowed to question anything. Also the Parshendi ordered him to wear white because it was only fair that the person you put a hit out on at least see the assassin coming.

Szeth makes a few plot-relevant observations about the palace without realizing it:
-A tall black guy with a moon-shaped white mark on his cheek is talking to the king's son, along with a shorter non-descript looking dude.
-A drunken dude slumped under a statue of Jezrien saying "Have you seen me?" over and over again.
-There are statues of the heralds (the ten heroes from the previous prologue) in the palace, but one of the statues of the Herald of Beauty, Shalash, has been removed.

So Szeth walks through the hallway palace, and it's lit with jars full of spheres. Spheres are glass orbs with gemstones inside, like sapphires and rubies and what have you. The neat thing about gemstones on this planet is that if you leave them outside in a Highstorm, they get infused with Stormlight and glow. People use spheres as both currency and a light source here.

Anyways, Szeth does what any rational man would do and snorts the stormlight in through his nose. Okay, people generally can't do that, but Szeth can.

Then the guards are like "Hey guy, you can't come this way" and then they're like "oh shit this guy is glowing a little bit" and then Szeth changes the direction of gravity for himself, falling down the hallway and landing feet first on the guards' faces. Then he summons his magic sword called a Shardblade, and uses his gravity magic to adhere one of the guards to the ceiling. Then he uses the shardblade to sort-of behead the other guard.

'Cause like, shardblades can't actually cut living flesh, they phase through it. But they do sever souls, so while the guy's head doesn't fall off or anything, his eyes burn out of his skull and he drops dead. If Szeth had cut his arm, his arm would have just been useless for the rest of his life but shardblades cutting through spinal cords is fatal.

Anyways. Szeth adheres the other guard's spear to the floor, and the stormlight on the guy stuck to the ceiling runs out and he falls on his spear and dies.

Szeth has to run now because an alert has been sent through the palace that an assassin is going to kill the king. He makes a show of it, cutting through walls with his shardblade, using gravity magic, breathing in stormlight from the lanterns and killing guards.

He sees a man in a regal robes and a cloak being rushed around a corner down a hallway with a full contingent of guards and a warrior with a shardblade and full plate standing in his way. Szeth is like "A'ight, I'll deal with you" because he kind of has to and also because he wants to die and hates killing people but is honorbound to not kill himself.

So he scuffles with the shardbearer, and the thing about shardplate armor is that shardblades can't cut through it, but if it takes enough hits it runs out of stormlight and breaks. So szeth keeps hammering on this guy with gravity magic until a piece of the plate breaks, and the warrior falls down stunned.

Szeth takes off after the robed man, but notices something is off when the shardbearer doesn't get up to chase him and stop him from assassinating the king. Then Szeth puts two and two together and is like "Derp derp, of course they'd put their king who is a known warrior by the way in full armor and distract me with a decoy."

The king sees Szeth coming back and is like "oh shit!" The fight ensues, with the king landing some punches on Szeth and breaking his nose, and Szeth using the gravity magic on himself, on the king, on furniture, until the fight is forced out onto the balcony. He shatters the king's helmet and breastplate in the process.

Szeth uses as much stormlight as he possibly can, increasing gravity on the balcony by five times the normal amount and causing it to shatter, and the king falls along with it. Szeth walks down the wall to the ground and sees the king bleeding out.

The king looks at Szeth and is like "Tell that bitch Thaidakar he's too late" and Szeth is like "literally who? The Parshendi made me do this"

And the king is like "That doesn't make any sense though." Then he gives Szeth a weird fucking sphere that is pulsating darkness instead of stormlight and is like "They must not have this. Tell my brother he must find the most important words a man can say."

Szeth is like well I guess a man's last dying words are sacred, and writes the king's message out on the ground with his blood.

So the king dies and his shardblade appears on the ground beside him. Szeth doesn't want it because he already has one and he hates this stupid thing so he runs off into the night.

Fan animatic of this chapter:

Soundtrack for this chapter:

 

@ToroidalBoat pls tell me you read my summaries.

 

Chapter 1: Stormblessed
1 year before the main story

We have a border skirmish between two princedoms in Alethkar. There is an ongoing war with the parshendi, but the lesser princes still bicker over territory disputes.

Before the battle starts we have a 15 year old boy named Cenn who only had three months of training, and an older veteran named Dallet. Dallet is looking out for Cenn who is scarred shitless. "It's okay kid. We're going to live, kid. Go pee before the battle starts, kid."

Dallet tells Cenn that the squadleader is named Kaladin Stormblessed, and Kaladin is fucking lucky. Their squad always has the least amount of deaths. Kaladin is super cool. He's a great leader. The wind itself seems to flirt with him on the battlefield.

Kaladin had paid money to personally see to it that Cenn is added as a part of his squad. Cenn wonders why Kaladin would ever want him.

Kaladin shows up and starts hyping the squad up for battle. If they do good here then maybe they can get sent to the real war-front on the shattered plains to avenge the assassinated king.

Cyan's world building note: It's worth noting that in Alethkar, and in any countries with the same major religion, there is a caste system based on whether you have dark or light eyes. Dark eyed people are of a lesser class, and Kaladin as well as his squad are all minor dark-eyed soldiers.

Anyways, the battle begins, and Kaladin's squad does pretty well, with Kaladin having already taught most of them how the enemy generally behaves. The squad sticks together, protects eachother, and Cenn notes that the enemy soldiers are also pretty low rank and inexperienced, with most of the real soldiers already being on the Shattered Plains.

Cenn gets separated though in the chaos of the fighting, and an enemy spears him in the leg. The enemy soldier is about to kill him when Kaladin appears, saving Cenn and taking out six enemy spearmen in an impressive display. I think Cenn questions his sexuality a little bit. Everyone questions their sexuality in the presence of Kaladin Stormblessed.

Kaladin beats back the immediate threat, and then ties a tourniquet around Cenn's leg while the rest of the squad catches up. They notice a man in full platemail among the distant enemy ranks. Cenn asks if it's a shardbearer and they laugh at him, claiming it's just a minor Lighteyes officer.

Kaladin says they're going to go after the officer, and orders Dallet to remove the wounded from the battle. Dallet tells Cenn that Kaladin took him into the squad because he likes looking after younger soldiers and making sure they survive. Kaladin also has a habit of removing his wounded soldiers from the battlefield.

Cenn sees Kaladin and his squad kill the Lighteyes officer, then sees a real shardbearer on the field nearby. Cenn questions his sexuality a second time, noticing that the shardbearer is beautiful like a god, and accepts that the shardbearer is going to kill him. The shardbearer advances towards Cenn and the wounded group, effortlessly killing soldiers left and right.

Cenn closes his eyes and awaits death.

 

Chapter 2: Honor is Dead
Okay we're on the main timeline now.

So Kaladin is in a caged wagon with a bunch of slaves now. He now has brands on his forehead, two marking him as a slave, one of them marking him as dangerous.

Some of the other slaves try getting Kaladin to talk to them, either to help them try to escape or at least tell them what he was enslaved for. Kaladin isn't interested in either conversation. One of the slaves tells Kaladin that he got enslaved for stealing a giant crab that can be used for pulling wagons.

Kaladin keeps getting pranked by windspren. Spren are living ideas that attach to concepts and manifest kind of like fairies. They are generally considered mindless, although some of them can cause mischief. The windspren have been making bowls and other things Kaladin grabs onto stick to his hand (not unlike how Szeth stuck a man to the ceiling in the prologue.) One windspren notices that Kaladin is carefully keeping a poisonous leaf that he found and asks him about it. She manifests taking the form of a young woman glowing blue.

Kaladin ignores her, and she presses him again, asking "Why do you ignore me, Kaladin?"

This disturbs Kaladin, since spren at most are known to only mimic people's voices, a spren remembering somebody's name is unheard of. He demands to know how she knows that but she doesn't know herself, asking instead how he knows his own name. He asks her why she's even using it, and says that spren aren't supposed to know things.

The spren calls him rude, then asks him why he doesn't rebel against the slave masters like he used to. The idea of a spren having long-term memory confuses him even more. Then Kaladin decides he doesn't care that much, and sulks in the cage, thinking about all the people he failed to save (including Cenn) and telling himself that they'd have been better of if he never tried.

Later Kaladin notices the slave masters inspecting a man that has a cough. Kaladin, having medical training, explains that the man just needs some extra water every night and he'll be fine. The slavers instead beat the man to death, stating that he'd just get the rest of the slaves sick.

Kaladin yells at the main slave merchant, who tells him to basically seethe and cope. Kaladin notices that he had accidentally clenched his fists too hard, and he crushed the poison leaves in his hand, and the bits blew out of his grip.

He sulks more in his cage while the windspren watches the leaves blow away.

 

Chapter 3: The City of Bells

Okay, Kaladin is depressing so we're going to focus on another character right now. Her name is Shallan. Shallan is not from Alethkar, she's from another country (that has the same religion) called Jah Kaved. Shallan is a young lighteyed woman with long red hair. She's from lesser nobility, and really likes traditionally feminine pursuits, like drawing, knowing how to read, anything academic, and keeping her left hand covered at all times.

Oh yeah. Did I mention that in this major religion that spans multiple countries, men aren't supposed to know how to read and women are supposed to keep their left hands covered at all times? Okay, now you know.

Shallan is sailing in to the city of Kharbranth, the City of Bells on a ship. This is the first trip she has ever gone on without her family. Shallan takes in the wonder of the city. It's beautiful, colorful, built into the cliffsides by the sea and rarely besieged by highstorms. There are a lot of bells throughout the city that catch the wind, giving the city it's name.

Shallan is here because she spent the last six months trying to catch up with the Princess of Alethkar, Jasnah Kholin. (Y'know, the daughter of the king that Szeth murdered.) Jasnah has been traveling from city to city, and while she agreed to meet with Shallan, she doesn't have time to wait around for her.

The ships crew receives confirmation that Jasnah is still in the city, staying at the massive library in the palace of the king of Kharbranth.

Shallan ponders parshmen while she waits for a ride to the library. You see, there's another type of crab people, similiar to the Parshendi, but parshmen are mindless servants. For reasons unknown to the characters, the parshmen live in servitude to humans, and obey without question. Even the name for the Parshendi just means "parshmen who can think" and the Parshendi do not find this offensive. She also draws a picture while she waits.

Eventually one of the sailors comes back with a guy pulling a rickshaw to take her to the library.

Upon arriving, Shallan thinks about Jasnah some more, and we learn that Jasnah is a brilliant schollar but also a heretic. Shallan is trying to meet with her to secure a wardship, where she will learn the feminine pursuits from Jasnah directly and secure a better financial future for her family who is in dire straights, and possibly even better marriage arrangements than what she'd be afforded otherwise.

We also learn that Shallan's father is dead, and her family is currently trying to keep it a secret, because their father racked up a massive amount of debt to the point that creditors might send assassins after them if they find out about his death.

 

Also this is already relevant.

 

Posting character art

Spoiler: Szeth Son Son Vallano

Spoiler: Kaladin

Spoiler: Shallan

Spoiler: The parshendi (crab people)

 

Szeth looks like the virgin version of the Chad Sazed

 

What an absolutely correct take.

This was not sarcasm, I am being serious.

 

@Congratulations

 

I finally dug out my copy of Way of Kings from my boxes of books. It was only in the second box too, which was lucky!

Chapter 4: The Shattered Plains

Back to Kaladin again. My bright blue self-insert fairy spren girl is asking Kaladin why he doesn't cry, and Kaladin ignores her because he's too beat down by the daily routine of traveling in a slave cage wagon. Also Kaladin has depression, so that's fun.

The spren keeps pestering him about why he doesn't cry, and then why humans cry in general, and he tells her to ask god about it because this conversation is getting too reminiscent of when @ToroidalBoat asks me questions about hexadecimal color codes.

The wagon presses on longer than normal today, and Kaladin taunts the slaver, asking him if he's lost. The slaver is a bit too chill for this and just asks Kaladin for directions. Kaladin asks to see the map, and the slaver hands it to him since he's not the brightest crayon on Roshar. Kaladin rips up the map.

The slaver (his name is Tvlakv but I can't pronounce that so I'm gonna keep calling him slaver) asks his mercenaries to punish Kaladin but they pee themselves and run away. So the slaver calms down and praises Kaladin for being clever and offers him a deal to guide him in the right direction. Kaladin tells him to jump off a cliff.

The slaver tells Kaladin that his hatred will make him strong and fetch a better price, Kaladin tells him that vengeance has never gotten him anywhere. THe slaver and Kaladin have a back and forth about how Kaladin didn't get his "dangerous" brand for deserting and the slaver is breaking the law by letting people think that. The slaver tells them that they aren't in Kaladin's home country (Alethkar) so the law doesn't apply.

The conversation ends when Kaladin confesses he doesn't know anything about where they are, and can't help with the directions. Slaver says it was a shitty map anyways and he'll figure it out. Kaladin confesses to his spren friend that he almost liked the slaver personally, but the guy is still an evil bastard.

Later the caravan is hit by one of those super hurricane High Storms. Kaladin hopes that the slaver and his mercenaries don't die in the storm so they aren't left in their cages in the middle of nowhere to die. Instead the mercenaries open the panels of the cages near the end of the storm so the slaves get rained on.

The spren appears, and says that there are shit ton of people to the East. Kaladin guesses they're nearing their destination. They crest a hill, and Kaladin sees the largest military encampments he's ever seen in his life. Each camp is located within a massive crater. One of the banners he sees in the encampments is the banner of Alethkar's king.

Beyond the warcamps he sees the Shattered Plains. Kaladin had tried really hard to be sent here when he was a solder to join the previously mentioned fight to avenge Alethkar's king that Szeth killed.


A lot of the slaves are happy to be here, since under the laws of Vorinism (one of the major religions of Roshar, and also the religion of Alethkar) they'd be required to be paid for their work. Kaladin hopes that they'll make him fight in the war.

 

You are a spren, just accept it.

 

There's too many different kinds for you to say that. There very well could be Toroidal spren. I might ask Sanderson about it in a Q&A sometime.

 

You are prone to wat? style questions in general. I don't mean that in a bad way though, just the "why do men cry?" passage reminded me of that.

 

Chapter 5: Heretic

I have a lot of favorite characters in this book. Said heretic is one of them.

We're back to Shallan, who is laying eyes upon the princess for the first time. Shallan simps on the spot because the princess is a total hottie. She's tall. She has tan skin, long beautiful black hair, and light lavender eyes. She is the picturesque image of the ideal scholar. (Remember literacy and scholarly pursuits are women's work in this culture.) This is Jasnah mother-fuckin' Kholin, princess of Alethkar.

She's a heretic because she's an atheist. Sort of. You see, Jasnah believes that god isn't all-powerful, and therefore cannot really be god, at least not as everyone believes him to be.

Jasnah is talking to some old man that's about half her height, and she barely spares Shallan a glance before resuming her conversation with the guy. Shallan gays a little harder in Jasnah's direction.

Shallan realizes that the man Jasnah is talking to is the king of Kharbaranth. Jasnah takes a moment to speak to her, saying she thought Shallan would have given up following her after the first few attempts at meeting, and that she was impressed that Shallan had caught up with her. Then she says that she never agreed to give Shallan a wardship, only agreed to meet, and she'd at the very least give Shallan a chance to petition her for it.

Jasnah questions Shallan on her skills in music (asking her to sing on the spot) language, in which shallan knows five of them, writing, math, and history. Jasnah is unimpressed with Shallan's mathmatic background and entirely disappointed in Shallan's lack of history education. Shallan confesses that she has an average education in science, then sasses Jasnah, asking what the point is in taking on a ward if she expects them to already be masters in scholarly pursuits.

Jasnah tells Shallan that she knows of her family background, naming the woman that her father remarried and saying that Shallan should be with her father consoling him in his grief now that her stepmother is dead. Shallan doesn't point out that her father is also dead, saying simply that he has "no need" of her. Jasnah is still dismissive, saying that Shallan is the twelfth girl to petition her for wardship this year.

They come to a collapsed hallway in the palace caused by a landslide, and the Kharbaranthian king, Taravangian says that his grandaughter is trapped on the other side.

Jasnah has a cool way to solve this problem, however. She is in possession of a soulcaster, a rare and powerful device that lets people basically do alchemy from Full Metal Alchemist. Jasnah uses the soulcaster to turn all the stone rubble blocking the hallway into smoke. Shallan notes that soulcasters are considered to be holy devices and that the Vorin priests must be pissed that a heretic like Jasnah has one.

The king reunites with his grandaughter, and Jasnah tells Shallan that she's going to deny her petition. Shallan responds that Jasnah hasn't questioned her artistic ability yet, and Jasnah dismisses this as drawing is a waste of time.

Jasnah leaves with King Taravangian, since Taravangian promised her access to his world-class library. Shallan thinks to herself that she's not going to give up yet, since the reason she needs Jasnah to accept her as a ward is so that Shallan can steal her soulcaster.