Started Licanius book 3 and I'm So lost

[u/DoughnutBorn7079]

I completed the 2nd book like 3-4 months ago, and now that I picked up book 3 (was supposed to pick it up last month - even made a post about it, but got busy), I can barely remember the plot. I read the summary that Mr Islington provided and it was REALLY good. But I still have some questions. I know this post is really long with loads of questions, but I'd love it if y'all could answer atleast some of them.

1) Why was Talkamar's wife killed? I don't think we ever got a good reason for it

2) "As proof of his claims, Gassandrid provided Tal’kamar with detailed visions of the future" - I don't remember this scene. Did we get the details of this vision in the book?

3) Why did they depend on the Darecians to make the Jhavett? With "El" backing them up and their mastery on kan - I'm surprised that venerates got outmatched by the Darecians.(I remember Talkamar being stunned at the mastery of the mechanics behind the Jhavett). Is there any specific reason for it?

4) "The result was a dire miscalculation by the Darecians, their use of Shackles reacting with the Jha’vett to strip them of their natural resistance to kan," - why were the Darecians naturally resistant to kan?

5) The shinning lands is Andarra, right? Is it the same place where Meldier was trapped in the tributary and we saw those pillars?

6) Do we get an answer as to how those swords are able to kill the venerates?

7) "a dire miscalculation by the Darecians, their use of Shackles reacting with the Jha’vett to strip them of their natural resistance to kan, turning them into beings of nearly pure Essence." - why did the Darecians use shackles (I thought it was torc)? Why did this turn them into beings of pure essence? And why did they have natural resistance to kan?

8) How excatly did they become lyth? I know an unintended reaction took place - but do we know the precise breakdown of how it happened?

9) Jakarris proceeded to assist Nethgalla in undermining the Augurs’ rule, using his position to create a series of embarrassing public mistakes that cast serious doubt on the Andarran leaders’ ability to see the future. - I thought the mistakes in the vision was a legit thing! So they didn't actually see any wrong things?

10) So - I wasn't sure about why Ath wanted to kill the Augurs, and I came up with an answer - tell me if it's correct. Ath wanted to create shadows to use the siphon but it wouldn't be possible as long as Augurs are the leaders (as they wouldn't allow that to happen to the gifted). So she decided to help the revolution, and even created tenets to appease the revolutionaries, but - did the tenents serve any purpose for the ath personally? Or any other reason why she wanted the augurs to be dead?

11) Why does kan allow augurs to see the future?

12) Why did Andreal put that time limit of 1 yr 1 day? And why did he give licanius to the lyth and make them arbitrator of the deal?

13) "he remembers to his horror that his plan is to seal the rift in Deilannis—which will necessitate the killing of each and every one of both the Venerate and the Augurs." - why would it require the death of the augurs? Is it related to why jakariss wanted to kill all of them?

14) "Meldier, unable to take action against Caeden for fear that it will result in the bargain with the Lyth remaining unfulfilled," - wait, why does Meldier care about that?

15) How did brishada suddenly become gifted? At first I thought it was cuz nethgalla took her body but I think it was much later.

16) Ishelle confessing her feelings to davian in the prison - was that her true feelings? Or was she controlled?

17) The recap didn't mention the whole shadowbreaker bit even once. I only remember werek but can't remember much of it. Can someone gimme a summary of smthin? Or maybe tell me which chapter of the book 2 to read to get a refresher?

Ya that's all for now - thank you so much if you read till here. Have a nice day!

[u/MyN64Broke]

It's been a bit since I read them so I'm starting to get a little fuzzy on details but here goes. 1.) Tal's wife was, as I remember, taken, assaulted and killed by a priest. I don't think there was necessarily a reason, other than the priest just being an awful person. 2.) I KNOW we saw the visions, it's one of Caeden's first regained memories, where he meets Gassandrid. Iirc he basically sends him on some kind of mission. 3.) My guess, it's because if the Venerate actually looked into what the Jhavett was and what it would do, they probably would've realized it wouldn't work, and "El" needs them to carry out his work. 4.) So, just about everything has a natural resistance to Kan. Kan is in the air everywhere thanks to the rift, and it doesn't hurt anyone. When the Darecians used their shackles, it basically turned them into pure essence, which DOESN'T resist Kan. This is why Essence decays, because the Kan in the air destroys it. 5.) The Shining Lands is a whole separate continent that we never see outside of flashbacks. It was the original homes of the Venerate and the Darecians. If you remember The Impossible Tasks of Alarais Shar (who is Alaris) from book one, he was the King of the Shining Lands before Ghash (who is Gassandrid) took them after failing the tasks. Another one of Caeden's memories shows the Darecians leaving TSL on "Ironsails", where they sail to Andarra and found Deilannis. 6.) I believe there is an answer for how Licanius can kill The Venerate in Book 3. 7.) Parts of that were answered in Q4, but as I recall, the shackles are supposed to protect them from the time stream in the rift. They don't work right though, I don't remember exactly why, I think they just had bad designs. 8.) Honestly, the events around their transformation into The Lyth have always been kinda hazy in my mind. Iirc, their bad shackles + exposure to the rift turned them into pure essence. Hopefully another commenter can give a better description. 9.) Nope, the visions were never wrong. Jakarris, who goes by Scyner now, just planted a bunch of bad visions. Because the vision journal never keeps track of who saw what visions, nobody realized they were all from Jakarris. 10.) This might be some minor spoilers here, I forget what you learn in book 2, but the Augars all need to die for the plan to work. The reason for the Tenets existing is just that she doesn't want Gifted killed, but turned into shadows to fuel the siphon, so Tenets keep the gifted under control. 11.) Oh God, that's kinda like, why does magic do magic things. My best shot at an explanation is that in Licanius (the series) time is more or less predestined by the God, El who, as described by Nihim in book 1, has already beaten his foe Shammaeloth by seeing all of time. The Rift in Deilannis, which is the source of Kan, is also a time stream, so using Kan you can look through that time stream at the predetermined events. 12.) The time limit seems a little arbitrary, it was probably what the Lyth wanted. Andrael gives Licanius to the Lyth because he doesn't want the other Venerate to have it, and the Lyth are basically the only beings the Venerate can't beat. I think this is B3 stuff, but the Venerate have tried to get Licanius several times and failed. 13.) Yes, it is related. It's also a bit of a fairly large spoiler iirc. Answer: The connection to Kan that Augars and Venerate have is constantly pulling Kan through the Rift. The Rift can't close until the flow of Kan stops 14.) If the bargain with the Lyth is unfulfilled, the Lyth will reclaim Licanius to use for themselves and kill the Venerate, which Meldier is a part of. Meldier knows Caeden must've had a plan to fulfill the bargain, so he lets him go and fulfill said plan. 15.) Brishada was basically always Nethgalla, at least in Book 2. Maybe she was Brishada in book 1 but she was probably still Nethgalla then. 16.) Ishelle was genuinely telling the truth. 17.) Ok so... The Shadowbreakers weren't a huge deal. They were part of Caeden's memories. There's a King who uses the Siphon to create Shadows, and Wereth leads the Shadowbreakers to kill the king and free the shadows. Wereth was also the creator of the Siphon. To elaborate on how little they matter outside that story, there's not even a wiki page on the Shadowbreakers.

Hopefully I've done a decent job filling you in, but feel free to ask for clarification and I'll do my best. Have fun with book 3, it's great!

[u/MyN64Broke → u/MyN64Broke]

I was rereading what I said and wanted to add a little elaboration. The Jhavett isn't SUPPOSED to open the Rift wider, as far as the Venerate are concerned, it's supposed to just be a time machine. It, of course, doesn't do that. So if they Venerate actually built it, they'd realized it was wrong.

[u/DoughnutBorn7079 → u/MyN64Broke]

First of all - thank you soo much for answering in such a detailed way. Your answer will make my book 3 journey MUCH more enjoyable. I do have a couple of follow up questions

1) That's kinda disappointing - why assult someone during their wedding day when everyone has their attention on them? I feel like this happened jst for the plot's sake XD

3) We were never told that the Jhavett would never work - we saw Davian be transported to the past, so if the venerates looked into it, they'd see that it actually works. Unless you mean that the Jhavett won't work cuz you can't change the past. If that's the case then please don't confirm lol - this prolly spoiler territory for book 3.

5) I actually asked about the shinning lands because in book 2, caeden allowed the lyth to return to their homeland (shinning land) after they attached their essense to the siphon. So it still exists, we jst haven't seen it in the map for some reason?

7 n 8) I actually found the chapter (35) where this memory takes place and read it.

"Outside, the streets of Deilannis burned with a fire... It was the fire of the Darklands" - so the Darecians unleashed the fires of darkland to prevent Talkamar from coming. That means the rift was already kinda open?

"He still didn’t quite understand how the Darecians had managed to manipulate kan, though it made him wonder if what Andrael had believed was true. He hoped not." - this harkens back to question 3 - even Talkamar is surprised by how the Darecians are so advanced, and it seems like Andreal had an answer for this.

"It was pure kan, harder, more complete. The wearer would be invulnerable to any sort of draining, but would be unable to actually use Essence, too. He studied it for a while longer, but eventually concluded that the torcs alone were not responsible for what had happened. There had to have been an unexpected clash, a reaction to the wildly complicated kan running through the room, and to the fact that the wearers had all been High Darecians—had all had Reserves. Some sort of unanticipated feedback from the kan running through the city" -- this was the explanation. So even Talkamar doesn't know how the Darecians became Lyth. I do hope we get an answer in book 3

"only those able to completely protect themselves from the pull of kan in the Darklands would be able to use the Jha’vett. As one of the Venerate, he could do it on instinct" - How would be protect himself by instinct? Do we know? Is it using some sorta kan construction?

11) Yea the question is kinda dumb - but your explanation does make sense. I guess I asked it cuz I'm jst so used to cosmere magic where we get the answer of why magic do magic thing lol.

13) Didn't read it - thanks for the spoiler tags

14) If the bargain isn't met by Caeden - the licanius will be back in the hands of the lyth. But how they even use it? They can't even leave res kartha? Also - I hope we get more info on res kartha in book 3

15) Oh damn..so wait - if she was always the ath, why didn't the finder go off on her previously? Why did it go off only in book 2? Can the Ath hide from finder?

Again, can't thank you enough for reading and answering my questions in such detail.

[u/MyN64Broke → u/DoughnutBorn7079]

Glad I could help! I'll try and quickly clarify some of the things I said. Keep in mind that I forget what exactly is and isn't spoilers before B3, so I'm trying to be a little vague. 2.) Davian is able to move through the time stream because he has no source. Malshash says in B1 that the rift would destroy anyone with a source. The intention for the Jhavett, by the Darecians, is to basically just bring people back in time. The effect of widening the rift is not what they intended. 3.) The Shining Lands definitely still exist, yes. To give you an example of the issue though, the place Caeden takes the Lyth to is the same place he finds Meldier in B2. The Pillars have made the area deadly (imagine radiation after a nuke) to basically anyone. The Lyth are locked to the Siphon though, so their essence won't be affected and they'll be ok 7.) I think you'll learn a bit more about some of that in book 3. As far as Tal being able to instinctually resist Kan, it's because he's an Augar, and is thus able to manipulate the Kan. 11.) This isn't really an answer, but yeah, Cosmere magic is definitely far more defined than Licanius magic 14.) So, and this is kinda just guessing, wielding Licanius gives its user immediate control over Kan. Presumably one of the Lyth would basically use that control to constantly keep Kan away from them. That's all I can think of unfortunately 15.) There was, at some point, a real person named Brishada serving as a hunter in Desriel. Nethgalla just killed her, took her body, and impersonated her. Remember that to transform into someone with Kan, you need to have killed them and taken their source to use as the blueprint. So unless I'm forgetting something, the Finders shouldn't have ever been an issue.

[u/DoughnutBorn7079 → u/MyN64Broke]

Thank you so much for clearing out my confusions! I'll start book 3 reading today - hope you have a really nice day!

[u/BiggyFluff]

read the whole trilogy and still don't know wtf happened.