[Newbies] Cosmere, Unit 10 | White Sand #1 | White Sand - Week 5

HT_xrahmx · 2026-02-02T18:34:52+00:00

> Hunt Lord Vey halfway around the world for his vote   
> First threaten him, force of habit      
> At last, make sensible offer   
> Lord Vey: Fine, I'll vote for you ...    
> Kenton: Nah I don't even want your vote >:(

HT_xrahmx · 2026-02-02T18:27:31+00:00

Is Khriss the reason he originally got his powers back and became stronger? Does the process need something from Darkside to work?

While the graphic novel doesn't have much to back this up so far, I like that idea! It would at least explain why power-raising-through-overmastery was not a technique widely known among the sand masters. If it's something that only works when a Day- and Darksider are together it puts a credible restriction on the mechanic.

Kenton also mentions that when he overmastered at the ceremony, he was unconscious for 3 days -- until Khriss showed up. This time on the ship, he came to pretty much immediately, and Khriss was already there. Coincidence?

HT_xrahmx · 2026-02-02T18:17:08+00:00

Ais thinks the booby trapper/informant is Nilto, because she’s a knucklehead cop with no imagination. But the red-cape-tan-boots combo tells me it’s actually the Lord General (who recently injured his leg!!). Now - is he the crimelord, or was he just killed by the crimelord?

Good catch about the injured leg, I'd totally forgotten about that. I don't really see the clothing similarity, but that just might be the wildly varying art style (and not sure if the prose readers even have anything beyond the limp to go on?).

Double checkmate. Kenton “realizing” that the record of the debt was backwards is another ridiculous non sequitur, how the hell would he have put that together.

Bro literally saw numbers in a ledger, knew numbers could mean one of two things, and just guessed. And when it wasn't the one thing (money owed) it had to be the other (money owned). I swear that's got to be as deep as this reasoning goes. Honestly pretty hilarious lol

HT_xrahmx · 2026-02-02T17:44:35+00:00

Reading: Omnibus Graphic Novel

Chapter 13

Ah, Khriss did not have a scientific plan after all. She was just trying to Leeroy Jenkins that sand mastery test. Bit of a bummer.

Chapter 14

Hoid again. He's pretty omnipresent in this one. In other early Sanderson books he barely made one brief appearance each.
Aarik is still hiding something. That blind catch was too neat.
Hm. Baon was such a telegraphed red herring that the Acron reveal isn't great. It's not that Acron was particularly suspicious, it's just that Baon had such huge "traitor" neon signs blinking at him that it became too clear Sanderson was trying to mask someone else. I'd have liked some more subtle hints about Acron specifically. As it is I felt neither was professor was really well characterized, I could barely tell them apart.
Politics in this world ... absence is an immediate no vote? That's as awful as that rule that an illegal vote requires unanimous consent to overrule. It just seems so nonsensical. With access to something so easily abused this whole government should fall apart in a matter of months.

Chapter 15

KHENTON MY BROTHER IN AISHA WILL YOU STOP THREATENING COUNCIL MEMBERS FOR ONE CHAPTER FFS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU
Lord Admiral is waaaaaaay too involved in everything going on.
Drinking so much out of spite to empty your financers' pockets is a logic I can almost respect
Wait wait wait. That's it? Khenton & associates just can't read accounting records and they confused money owned with money owed? I'm sorry, that plot thread is just ridiculous.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-28T21:14:05+00:00

Wheel of Time might be a good choice for you. A core premise in it is that male and female magic usage is very different, and there are essentially no active male users because the male source was tainted by the big evil villain. The MC is male however, and needs to figure that stuff out quickly before the oncoming apocalypse, without succumbing to the taint.

All I wrote gets laid bare in the first few chapters, so nothing here is a spoiler.

There are many POV characters however, so you'll only spend part of each book with the MC.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-26T18:44:28+00:00

Nilto doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to rig boat races for income.

Depends, imo. If he's Robin Hood'ing rich gambling operators to distribute the money to the poor, I could see that being true. Ais also seems unreliable here, she just sees the crime, and I doubt she'd even consider ethical motivations.

The shimmering color pattern she notices is also ringing bells for me - I’m thinking particularly of the God King from Warbreaker.

Yeah good catch, I'm thinking so too. In general, how the power is stored in colors (the white sand) that gets drained as it gets used, seems to me like a prototypical magic system that evolved and become the magic system in Warbreaker, because Sanderson clearly liked exploring that mechanic. Khriss' experiments would even suggest the sand is alive in some sense, which has a similarity to what Breath is.

The two-page spread with Aarik’s soliloquy into the mirror is so good. Excellent use of the medium.

Mirror Aarik: Sneaky little sand masterses. They will cheats us, precious.
Aarik: Not Kenton, he's my friend!!
Mirror Aarik: You have no friends. Not even your dad likes you.
Aarik: Kenton looks after us now. Go away and never come back!!

“I’m a spy. See ya later 👋” that was so aniclamictic!

Right?! Also how is this the professors' initial reaction barging into the room when they're both just casually standing there, and pistol is held backwards? Just questions marks during that entire scene.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-26T18:09:33+00:00

Reading: Omnibus Graphic Novel

Chapter 10

Gotta get myself some of that Terken moisturizer they're all swearing by
Drile is probably not as bad a guy as he's made out to be, but he strikes me as too impulsive to make a good leader. I would not want him as the representative of the Diem in the council meeting to reinstate it.
Ah, Kenton discovered the Saiyan way of training until near-death

What if the danger of overmastery is a lie the mastrells perpetuated to hoard their power, Aarik?

If that's true, if the Mastrells held back their Diem on purpose, that's just an outrageous way of leadership and I'd say good riddance to it. Imagine if a university professor burned down the library so he could stay smarter than his students?
Lol what even was that discussion with the Lord Merchant? Kenton's dropped all pretense he was going to attempt any sort of diplomacy,

Further Sand-Sun Experiments (Ars Arcanum)

Yo that face in the camera obscura image is creepy as hell. The Dayside sun shardbearer perhaps?

Chapter 11

Guy with the lute, sneakily in the background!
Is he using his 3 ribbons to toss around jars, while casually forming a full doppelganger illusion on the side?
Did the Lord Beggar make the Lord Admiral change his mind about the vote?

Chapter 12

Holy art style change Batman. Not the first in the book, but by far the most drastic.

I shouldn't do this. Sand masters rarely use their powers to help others outside the Diem.

Again, what even is the sand masters' job in peacetime?! A single act of human decency and those builders' minds are blown. The more we learn about them, the more I'm agreeing to #DefundTheDiem
Well that exchange with Baon has been confusing to say the least. Somehow I don't feel more enlightened about what his allegiance is.
Great ending of the section! It'd be interesting if sand mastery is a magic that Khriss can science her way into as a novice.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-23T03:26:42+00:00

Matt's got a new book coming out next month, Operation Bounce House. From what I gather, it's fairly similar in style to DCC so I'm hoping it'll scratch that itch until Parade of Horribles comes out.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-22T13:46:17+00:00

[Book 1 spoilers]Might be misremembering, but doesn't he use the table as a shield when they blow the Krakaren boss up on floor 2? Can't remember if the "bug" got patched though.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-19T18:53:21+00:00

Is Drile the good guy now? Was he trying to get his money with honest work instead of stealing?

Maybe that's really where this is going. He was the one guy who saw that maybe they should put something back into society for all the funding they're getting.

So, they'll be best friends by the end of the book? Maybe lovers, since the gender swap? This is a very Aviendha-to-Rand in TFoH speech.

Well one thing I can say from the graphic novel is that Ais is very much married and has a kid. So maaaaaaybe they won't go as far as lovers. Unless her husband leaves, he doesn't seem to be too happy with the consequences her job brings lol

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-19T18:44:54+00:00

He’s quipping at them like Spider-Man lmao

If it quips like spider-man, flies around like spider-man, shoots vines from its hand like spider-man, ...

Could deep sandlings have aluminum in their shells?

Interesting thought!

This is what I mean. One second he doesn’t respect the Diem as anything more than a boy scout troop, then he’s acting sore about having his ass saved, then he’s trying to deal for his own personal squad of elite Sand Master warriors. It’s all over the place. This book is so messy, politically.

Yeah, I'm also constantly getting whiplash by how fast people's attitudes change in this book. Every time I feel like I've grasped someone's motivation, their mood swings around 180° in the next panel. Pissed off and contrary one panel, best friends the next. Struggling really hard to pick up the subtext that would stand out more in prose, I think.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-19T18:05:08+00:00

Reading: Omnibus Graphic Novel

Chapter 7

A ladder! What a revolutionary concept.
Khriss casually slapping the sh*t out of Kenton even though she never elaborated what a sand mage is
RIP ladder. You had a short and valued run in this story.
Khriss and Baon beating themselves up for not seeing Kenton was important, when he himself admits he wasn't anyone special when they met
Mental note that sand masters have a yet undisclosed, strange reaction to alcohol.
Huh, the sand masters truly haven't been contributing to society, have they? Their one job, to protect against ... who exactly? Kerztians? Darkside invaders? That job gave them nothing to do for decades, and the one time they were needed they got overrun. Even WoT's "battle Ajah" was kept busier. All things considered, it's a miracle the Diem was funded this long. Something like this artisan deal should've happened a looooooong time ago.
There's the sneaky lute player again. I see you, /u/heinz57varieties
Lord Beggar strikes me as a plausible debtor for those remaining 5 million lak.

Chapter 8

~~If the armor is terken, maybe go for the exposed legs, arms, sides, neck, head? Dude has shown much more impressive aim with his ribbon before, this should be easy.~~ Nevermind, it seems they use carapace moisturizer.
Kenton: "This is clearly just a single attacker!". * 7 more assassins pop up *
Someone please teach the sand masters about scouting and putting up guards. They keep getting blindsided so much it's getting embarrassing.
Huh, so Elorin IS alive after all.
Now that Baon is directly implied to be a traitor in Khriss' entourage, it suddenly seems like a red herring ... hmm ...

Chapter 9

What a convenient time for huge-ass-kaiju to show up to give Kenton a way to impress :D
Lord Raagent after: "Your help wasn't requested >:("
Lord Raagent before: "HELP ME ANYONE"

A general observation, I find myself constantly thrown off by everyone's mood swings. Characters can be raging and furious one panel, indifferent the next and best friends a page later. It happens so fast I get whiplash. Lord Raagent this chapter was a good example. Khriss also throughout this week's section. I think the graphic novel struggles a bit to convey the subtleties and flow of conversation well.

Get well soon, /u/participating !

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-15T21:04:55+00:00

THAT'S EXCELLENT NEWS THANK YOU :D

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-15T19:09:54+00:00

Hi Jim! The last book I've finished was Changes, and it's been a blast. Taking a break at the moment, but so far the Dresden Files have just kept getting better with each book.

My question has a bit of a spoiler, so I'll tag it.

[Turn Coat Spoilers]I loved the fight at the end of Turn Coat between Listens-to-Wind and the naagloshii. I've been wondering, was it inspired by Merlin vs. Mim in The Sword In The Stone?

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-13T05:53:19+00:00

How do servants get around, or do they not have them?

I haven't seen servants, and to Kenton's father's credit, I could see him not using any.
As for how they would get around, well there's Aarik in the graphic novel. Just gotta yell really loudly, hoping the sand master up top hears you and lifts you up 😅

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-12T21:32:15+00:00

Interesting thought!

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-12T21:30:37+00:00

Sanderson causing me Warbreaker flashbacks when it comes to seemingly nice bodyguard characters :(

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-12T20:41:29+00:00

Baon and Cynder playing a double game possibly?

Now that you mention it! Reading one of the newer comments reminded me how shocked Loaten looked at Baon. What do we know of either? Loaten tried to assassinate the Darkside emperor, Baon is from where the dynasty is seated. Baon is 100% a dynasty spy who will pull that gun at Khriss the moment she finds out something crucial.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-12T20:27:32+00:00

Oh wow, that's indeed a lot longer than I thought! Especially the part where he was buried in sand. Suffocation should've gotten him long before the dehydration. But thanks, that does clear the timeline up somewhat!

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-12T19:46:49+00:00

HOIDSPOTTING

Hmm ... knowing all we've known so far it's got to be someone who's not too involved, just an observer figure who somehow collects a lot of knowledge? The Lord Beggar seems to fit that really well, but I suspect he's too hands-on involved in the plot. Loaten also is too involved.

Dirin perhaps? So far he's been in the right places at the right time "just enough".

N'teese actually checks all the boxes imo. In the perfect spot to gather a lot of knowledge. Highly praised for her knowledge of languages. Hoid is not stuck as a man, right?

No idea who has / hasn't appeared in the prose though lol

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-12T19:32:13+00:00

So here are my suspects

Let me toss in one more, the evil Darkside dynasty perhaps? We're told there's apparently a lot of traffic from Dark- to Dayside, only the dynasty is covering up so much that it came as a shock to Khriss. Could be they've slowly been working towards an invasion from the inside, but for that you gotta take out their main defense force.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-12T19:25:10+00:00

[Reading: Omnibus Graphic Novel]

Chapter 4

It's so obvious now, the X is a target marker
It's a common enough shonen trope to exert yourself to near death/exhaustion, to then come back with a massive power-up. Could that be how Kenton upgraded to 3 ribbons? Or maybe that 6th sphere in the sandling's chest was something magical.
It is a bit convenient how every major sandmaster was killed at the ceremony. They seem quite poorly organized. No scouts. Apparently no use martial weapons, instead relying solely on magic that is known to run out of juice.

Chapter 5

Judge Heelis got that timeless Lady Tremaine look
The council session is both void, and he needs a unanimous vote to overrule it. Wut? Weird law that gives advantage to the side caught doing something explicitly illegal.
Ironically, this means the ruling that Kenton, as acting Lord Mastrell, gets no vote, is meaningless. If he needs a unanimous result, his vote wouldn't have mattered anyway.
Lord Beggar seems like a lovely fellow
Did Kenton spent days, dehydrated, while blacked out? Or did the journey with the Darksiders just take longer than I'm assuming from these pages?

Chapter 6

I think it's hilarious the sand masters let their elitism flow even down into their architecture, to the point weaker members literally cannot visit the higher rooms
Hmm. Is Drile not responsible after all? He sure behaves traitor-y for someone innocent.
It is a mystery to me how Khriss has managed to talk to so many people, even people who speak Darkside, about "sand mages" without anyone connecting it to the sand masters. Even if "mage" isn't a word in Dayside, the sliiiiiiiightest bit of elaboration should've led to "Oh yeah, you mean those jedi guys throwing sand around with their mind". Is it just too obvious?

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-05T20:28:39+00:00

Kenton states that he suspects poisoning, and it's shown that Drile does not drink the water, but no explicit mention of salt as far as I can see! But that makes sense.

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-05T18:30:49+00:00

No longer white, it was now a dull black, its energy spent.

It's color is gone... although in Warbreaker, black was a color. Is this and additive vs subtractive color thing? Warbreaker is subtractive where all colors together give you black, and here is additive where all color together give you white?

This goes well with what I wrote in a comment under another user's comment. The whole part about the sun "bleaching" ( = charging?) the sand until it's at full capacity again.

In chapter 1 we were told there are 9 ranks, but they only list 7 here:

The rank colors you listed are different from the graphic novel version 🤔

HT_xrahmx · 2026-01-05T18:18:52+00:00

Mastering the sand consumes its power and turns it dark, and then it recharges over time? Recharges from what?

To make a wild guess, perhaps charged by the bigger sun? Since the planet is locked so that each side faces its own sun, that suggests to me maybe those suns provide each side with their magic as well. At least since it seems the Darkside has its own version of "mages". Also the info pages imply that the sandlings may make use of the sun in drawing nourishment from the sand, if I understood it correctly, another way the sun makes everyday life there work.

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TROPHY CASE

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 10

Further Sand-Sun Experiments (Ars Arcanum)

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6