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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BetaPart 5, Chapter 70-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 5: “The Silence Above”
Chapter 70 Summary: “Sea of Glass”
While Shallan recovers from her near-poisoning and thinks over recent events, she comes to the realization that Jasnah has the ability to transfigure matter without external help. Shallan’s experience with the realm of beads is probably a similar ability.
Shallan confronts the princess about her discovery. Jasnah is at first incredulous so to convince her Shallan willingly enters the glass bead realm. She feels lost, but then Jasnah arrives and brings her out. The princess is angry and claims that visiting the realm, called Shadesmar, is incredibly dangerous. Convinced of Shallan’s abilities and her desire to learn more, Jasnah shows her the research she has been doing on the Voidbringers.
Chapter 71 Summary: “Recorded in Blood”
Szeth is sent to kill King Taravangian. He makes it into the palace and the king’s quarters, but a surprise waits for him there. The person giving him orders was Taravangian all along. He is a cunning man, pretending to be simple-minded. The king tells the Shin that the reason behind all the assassinations is not revenge, but a desire to create a more stable Roshar. The king takes him to a secret hall in the hospital where hundreds of sick people are located. However, instead of healing the patients, the healers are draining them of blood. While the people die, some of them begin speaking strange words. Taravangian wants to find out as much as possible about it, as it means that some disaster is approaching. He believes that collecting the words of the dying might save everyone else. He then orders Szeth to kill Dalinar.
Chapter 72 Summary: “Veristitalian”
Shallan attempts to find out more about her and Jasnah’s abilities. The strange beings with symbol heads turn out to be a special kind of spren. Jasnah reveals that the Knights Radiant’s abilities were closely tied to different types of spren. Finally, the princess confirms that she believes the Voidbringers to be the Parshendi, and probably the parshmen as well. The stories saying that humans destroyed the Voidbringers are untrue.
Chapter 73 Summary: “Trust”
Kaladin and Dalinar converse. The Highprince offers Kaladin the position of head of the Kholinar honor guard. The bridgeman is surprised, but agrees on the condition that he will not answer to any other lighteyes.
Chapter 74 Summary: “Ghostblood”
Shallan reads through all of Jasnah’s notes and research and agrees that the Voidbringers of legend are, in fact, the Parshendi and parshmen. The princess plans for the two of them to travel to the Shattered Plains where she believes there is more information hidden. Jasnah also reveals that there is a group known as the Ghostbloods who are also searching for the same thing, but for unknown purposes. Kabsal was one of them, as attested by a tattoo found on his body. When Shallan sees the symbol, she realizes that her own father was most likely a member of this group.
Chapter 75 Summary: “In the Top Room”
Dalinar and Navani are together when a highstorm arrives. Dalinar experiences another vision, but it turns out to be the same as the very first one he ever had. Everything repeats itself, including the messages given to him by a mysterious man. Eventually, Dalinar arrives to the shocking realization that the other man does not see or hear him and that his words are akin to a recording or a diary. The man keeps repeating that it is necessary to unite everyone in the face of the coming Desolation and that the Knights Radiant must be formed again. Finally, he says that his name is Almighty and he has been killed by Odium.
Epilogue Summary: “Of Most Worth”
Wit, aka Hoid, is inside Kholinar City, talking to the gate guards. Despite his strange behavior, his light blue eyes guarantee that he is treated as a lord. Suddenly, something crashes against the gates and a Shardblade cuts through the doors. A man walks in, dragging his sword behind him. He introduces himself as Talenel’Elin, Stonesinew, Herald of the Almighty, and announces that the Desolation has come.
Part 5, Chapter 75-Epilogue Analysis
The last part of the novel is a series of dramatic reveals that challenge and undermine what readers have taken for granted up to this point in order to set up the next novel in the series. Jasnah’s ability to do magic, for example, is innate, rather than the result of using an artifact. She has been misleading everyone. King Taravangian is also not who he seems on the surface, but a sinister figure with obscure motifs. Finally, the very foundation of Vorinism, the Almighty, is shown to be a misinterpreted character. The section’s title, as a whole, “The Silence Above,” could refer to the fact that the being known as the Almighty is gone. People pray to a deity who is no longer there and is incapable of answering their wishes. More generally, they have always worshiped someone who is not truly a god and who never had the powers they bestow on him. In other words, these last chapters undermine most of the authority figures and institutions on Roshar.
Additionally, the name of this section mirrors the first section’s title, “Above Silence.” In fact, the five parts are arranged symmetrically around the middle section, titled “Dying.” They read: “Above Silence,” Illuminating Storms,” “Dying,” “Storms Illumination,” “The Silence Above.” Read together, they form a paraphrase, of sorts, of the Vorin poem, “Above silence, the illuminating storms—dying storms—illuminate the silence above” (1253). This poem style is called a ketek, “a complex form of holy Vorin poem. The ketek not only reads the same forward and backward (allowing for alteration of verb forms) but is also divisible into five distinct smaller sections, each of which makes a complete thought” (1253). In the Endnote, a scribe remarks that the poem was originally uttered by a dying Herdazian, someone illiterate who did not know the language in which he spoke. Additionally, the poem has not been recorded in any other known document. These elements support King Taravangian’s belief that the words of the dying hold special meaning, as Sanderson increasingly complicates the religious and spiritual nature of Vorinism in these chapters.
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By Brandon Sanderson
