Chapter 129: The Cost – Dalinar’s Boon and Curse

Spoiler Warning: This chapter summary contains major spoilers for Oathbringer. Read at your own risk.

Summary

Five and a half years before the present day, Dalinar awakens in a stormwagon somewhere in Hexi, disoriented and unsettled by a strange episode. He has been drinking heavily, and the voices of the dead plague him whenever he tries to sleep. His loyal soldier Felt has arranged for the caravan to drop them as close as possible to the Nightwatcher’s legendary valley, and they part ways with the caravan master, buying his silence. Felt admits that when he visited before, the Nightwatcher never appeared to him—she seems to avoid foreigners.

The party hikes for hours across the barren, wind‑scoured Hexi landscape. Wild chickens dart among twisted trees. As they near the valley, Dalinar feels both eagerness and reluctance: he has used the promise of the Nightwatcher as an excuse to keep drinking, and now his supply runs low. The valley itself is a riot of overgrown vegetation—vines, ferns, and moss tangling together like combatants in a tapestry. Dalinar decides to go in alone that very night.

In the darkness, the forest seems alive, bending branches away to grant him reluctant passage. He immediately regrets his choice as guilt‑born screams and pleas surround him—the voices of those he has killed, including his son Adolin, Evi, and countless others. A vision of his own future unfolds: if he does not change, he will become a tyrant who burns the Rift and forges a unified Vorin empire through terror and slaughter, standing atop heaped corpses, laughing.

Staggering, Dalinar drops Oathbringer and falls to his knees. The cries fade, and a whispering voice calls him “Son of Honor.” The Nightwatcher emerges from the darkness—a green mist with an elongated, face‑bearing form and a tail of vapor. She repeats the traditional offers: renown, wealth, skill, a Blade that bleeds darkness. But Dalinar, weeping, whispers only “Forgiveness.” The Nightwatcher recoils; it is “no boon,” she protests, and she is about to press again when a new voice interrupts.

Cultivation strides into the clearing, a matronly woman whose dress bleeds into the vegetation. She dismisses the Nightwatcher kindly and declares that this boon is beyond her daughter. She will give Dalinar “a pruning”—a careful excision to let him grow. The cost will be high: all memories of his wife Evi. Horrified yet desperate, Dalinar consents. The forest surges into him, tendrils pushing through his skin, and rips away every recollection of Evi—her face, her name, the times they shared.

The next morning he crawls out, exhausted but physically unharmed. Felt and Malli tend to him, and Dalinar realizes he cannot remember what his wife looked like, nor even her name. The guilt and grief over Gavilar remain, but the specific pain of losing Evi is now an empty space. He resolves to stop drinking and throws himself into vengeance: he orders battle plans for the Parshendi and asks for an Alethi copy of The Way of Kings to be read to him again. A slight, unnamed something still feels missing, but he cannot identify it.

Key Events

• Dalinar travels to the Valley of the Nightwatcher in Hexi, hoping for a way to escape his grief and addiction.
• He enters the valley alone at night and is assailed by auditory hallucinations and a vision of his own monstrous future.
• The Nightwatcher offers him many conventional boons, but Dalinar asks only for forgiveness.
• Cultivation appears in person, an exceptionally rare event, and overrides the Nightwatcher’s authority.
• Dalinar accepts a “pruning” that will erase all memory of Evi; the cost is the boon, and the boon is the cost.
• The forest infiltrates his body and spirit, removing Evi completely.
• Emerging the next day, he cannot recall his wife’s name or face, but is free from that particular agony.
• He commits to conquering the Parshendi, breaking his drinking habit, and re‑reading The Way of Kings.

Character Development

Dalinar
At his lowest point, Dalinar is a broken man who hears the screams of the dead and teeters on the edge of becoming the very monster he fears. His plea for forgiveness—almost involuntary—reveals that beneath the lust for battle and the Thrill, guilt over Evi’s death consumes him. By accepting the pruning, he chooses the hope of growth over the comfort of memory, even at the cost of losing the woman he loved. His subsequent resolve to reform and to conquer in Gavilar’s name shows a man who now has clarity but still lacks true understanding.

The Nightwatcher
The Nightwatcher is portrayed as a childlike, predatory entity, eager to grant boons but bewildered by intangible requests like forgiveness. She is not malevolent, simply incapable of grasping the human need for absolution. Her mannerisms—the many tiny hands caressing Dalinar’s face—underline her alien yet intimate nature.

Cultivation
Cultivation’s sudden appearance marks her as a power far older and wiser than her “daughter.” She speaks in capitals, her voice like tumbling stones, and her dress merges with the forest itself. She explains that her boon is a controlled pruning, not a transformation or removal of compulsions. She is fully aware that she is making Dalinar into “a weapon”—dangerous, destined for someone (possibly Odium or Honor), and that all things can be cultivated, even thorns. Her intervention redefines the Nightwatcher’s legendary deals and shows a deliberate shaping of Dalinar’s path.

Themes, Symbols, and Motifs

• Pruning and Growth
  Cultivation’s metaphor of gardening is literal: she removes a part of Dalinar so that the rest of him can flourish. The cost is as essential as the boon; without the excision, he could not escape the cycle of grief and self‑destruction.

• Forgiveness vs. Forgetting
  Dalinar seeks forgiveness, but what he receives is forgetfulness. The chapter questions whether one can truly be absolved without fully remembering the sin. His peace comes at the price of an essential piece of his identity.

• The Burden of Memory
  The voices of the dead are a manifestation of Dalinar’s guilt. Even after the pruning, he still feels Gavilar’s loss and a vague sense of something missing, suggesting that some wounds are too deep for even a god to heal completely.

• The Cost of Power
  The Nightwatcher’s offers—a Blade that cannot be defeated, skill without fatigue—echo the temptations Dalinar faced as a warmonger. Yet the true “boon” he receives is not a weapon in his hands but one he becomes, illustrating that the most dangerous gifts are those that change the soul.

Why This Chapter Matters

“The Cost” is the keystone that explains Dalinar’s most puzzling behavior throughout Oathbringer and earlier books: his inability to remember his wife. It recasts the entire Nightwatcher legend—she is not the ultimate authority; Cultivation is. The chapter reveals that Dalinar’s boon and curse were not a whimsical transaction but a deliberate, god‑level intervention. Cultivation’s pruning sets him on a path to become a better man, yet simultaneously “provides for Him a weapon,” weaving into the larger conflict between Honor, Odium, and Cultivation. The vision of the tyrant he could have become underscores the stakes: without this moment, Dalinar would have fallen into atrocity. Finally, the chapter ties the personal cost directly to the cosmere‑wide theme of Cultivation’s Intent—growth through careful, often painful, cutting. It is the foundational flashback that makes Dalinar’s later recovery of his memories and his ultimate choice in the battle of Thaylen Field so resonant.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why was the Nightwatcher unable to grant Dalinar’s request for forgiveness?
   The Nightwatcher operates on a simplistic system of boon and curse, dealing in tangible or supernatural gifts (wealth, skill, Shards). Forgiveness is an abstract, emotional concept that requires moral reckoning and cannot be conjured like a physical blessing. Her confusion shows that she is not equipped to handle the deeper needs of human souls—Cultivation must step in.

2. What does Cultivation mean by “a pruning,” and why is the cost the boon itself?
   Cultivation describes her intervention as a careful excision, much like a gardener cutting back a plant to encourage healthier growth. The removal of Evi’s memories is the cost, but it is also the boon: by forgetting the source of his most crushing guilt, Dalinar gains the emotional space to stop drinking and pursue a renewed purpose. The cost and boon are inseparable because the very act of taking away pain is what grants him the ability to move forward.

3. How does this chapter change the reader’s understanding of the Nightwatcher’s bargains?
   Previously, the Nightwatcher was believed to be an isolated magical entity that granted boons and attached unpredictable curses. This chapter reveals that her mother, Cultivation, is the true power behind the valley, and that she can override any deal. It reframes the legend: the “bargains” are not chance but part of Cultivation’s long‑term gardening of Roshar, and she intervenes when a mortal’s request has significance beyond a simple boon. Dalinar’s case is a rare personal cultivation of a tool for a greater conflict.