65 pages • 2 hours read
Brandon SandersonThe Way of Kings
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaInterludes 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Interlude 4 Summary: “Rysin”
A merchant, Vstim, and his apprentice, Rysin, a young woman, arrive in Shinovar to trade. The Shin delegation arrives and the trading begins. Vstim and his counterpart, Thresh, begin bargaining, but in an unusual way. Shin culture values humility highly, so each trader must undersell their wares. After a bargain is struck, the two men engage in conversation from which it becomes clear that Thresh is the one who gave Szeth’s Oathstone to Vstim seven years earlier. Vstim, in his turn, traded the Truthless to someone else.
Interlude 5 Summary: “Axies the Collector”
Axies the Collector wakes up naked and with a terrible hangover in a back alley. He is Aimian, meaning he is able to change his body at will, so his first task is to reshape his nose to avoid unpleasant smells. He then banishes his hangover, which helps him recall that he is currently in Kasitor, an Iriali port city. Axies’s goal in getting inebriated was to observe the appearance of a rare spren that exists only in Iriali. His life’s work is to study and catalogue all the various types of spren on Roshar. Another reason for his visit to Kasitor is a huge water spren that jumps into the air once every day at the same time.
Interlude 6 Summary: “A Work of Art”
Szeth is now under the control of the man who killed his previous master. After spending so much time outside of Shin, he experiences moments of doubt about his religion, Stone shamanism, which prohibits people from walking on stone. Outside of Shinovar, the rest of Roshar is swept by highstorms leaving no soil left anywhere; people cannot accomplish anything without stepping on stone. Szeth attempts to suppress his doubts. After his exile, his culture and beliefs are the only things left to him. He prefers to suffer rather than reject his heritage.
Szeth is sent to assassinate one of his master’s competitors, but when he arrives at the mansion, his target’s head is waiting for him on a table. Another man, shrouded in darkness, attempts to entice Szeth to come work for him. Szeth explains he has no choice but to serve whoever owns his Oathstone. The mysterious person produces a second head–that of Szeth’s master. Szeth has no choice but to obey this new person who gives him a list of prominent figures, kings and other leaders that Szeth is to assassinate. Szeth is horrified that these assassinations will create total chaos on Roshar.
Interludes 4-6 Analysis
This trio of Interludes provides more information about Szeth and his origin story. In “Rysin,” it becomes clear how exactly Szeth ends up outside of Shin. In “A Work of Art,” the readers are allowed a rare glimpse into his mind and realize that the man is faced with a terrible choice: keep committing despicable crimes on the orders of his masters, or reject his faith and identity. Szeth’s dilemma mirrors Dalinar’s challenge to reconcile his visions with Alethi cultural norms, emphasizing the similar emotional and existential experiences of characters across different cultures and social strata. Simultaneously, Sanderson withholds the identity of Szeth’s master from the reader, maintaining the mystery of who ordered the assassination of Gavilar. At this point in the novel, the forces of good and evil are in question, as the political nature of Alethkar prevents easy judgments about the morality of the Alethi war. Sanderson presents the battle between good and evil as taking place on multiple planes: on the contemporary battlefield, in the internal lives of characters, and existentially throughout thousands of years of cyclical Desolations.
Crucially, Sanderson provides more context for the spren in “Axies the Collector,” helping the reader gain a fuller understanding of the nonhuman characters in the novel. This interlude also serves to provide some comic relief and introduce a sense of wonder to the story, providing tonal balance to the epic tale of cyclical war and social inequity. The Interlude about Axies also introduces another unusual people, the Aimians, who can shapeshift their bodies at will. This raises several questions about race and gender and opens up the possibility of nonbinary and multiracial identities on Roshar, but Axies’ character is not mentioned again in this book and these topics remain largely unexplored within this story.
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By Brandon Sanderson
