The Thrill

The Thrill
Fan art by Juanes Burbano[1]

The Thrill (i.e., the enjoyment and longing for war) is part of what drives the Alethi as a people. It is a heady euphoria described differently given the situation in which a combatant is involved. It is also a feeling experienced by an individual and, likely, each individual's interpretation of it is unique.

Men didn't often speak of the Thrill, the joy and lust for battle. It was a private thing.

The Thrill is specific to Alethkar, that region of Roshar, and is a cultural thing enhanced magically by a certain ancient spren.

Characteristics

Seemingly, the Thrill 'sings' within the combatant's mind and provides him with focus and a sense of glory, thereby affording him the internal confidence to persevere, even in the face of deadly adversarial conflict.

The Thrill consumes Dalinar, giving him strength, focus, and power. The glory of a battle grows grand. The Thrill excites him. He nearly chokes on it, the joy, the pleasure, the desire. The danger. When it stirs inside him, he feels it like a thirst, a physical need.

According to Sadeas, the Thrill was a blessed and beautiful strength. As always, however, the Thrill was fleeting once battle itself ended. A dull sense of nothingness followed. Also, pain from injury surged as the Thrill faded.

The Thrill lent Eshonai energy and strength, but it drove her to recklessness. To ignore her surroundings.

Until Taravangian's takeover of Jah Keved, it seemed as if the Thrill was largely focused in Alethkar. Now, it's moved westward into Jah Keved, and is just as strong there if not stronger.

Knights Radiant are immune to the Thrill's effects, and are often racked with feelings of disgust and nausea if it starts to come upon them.^{[citation needed]}

Progression

Capturing the Thrill
Fan art by Petar Penev[2]

As a young soldier, for Dalinar the Thrill began as an emotion that stirred inside him like a fire that filled the pit within. It washed through him and awakened him, bringing clarity.

It thrummed inside him as the pulse of battle, the rhythm of killing and dying. It drove away the pain of injury, let him focus.

For him, it was a heady rush, a lust to prove himself.

The Thrill gave him purpose.

Even through exhaustion, he was surprised to find that he could sense it still. Deep down, like the warmth of a rock that had known a recent fire.

The Thrill seemed to transform within Dalinar as he ran, soaking into his tiring muscles, saturating him. It became a power unto itself.

Influence

The Thrill is connected to a Voidspren known as Nergaoul.

According to Taravangian, the Thrill only affects people who are in a certain proximity to Nergaoul.

Types of Thrills

There exist the Thrill of Contest and the Thrill of Battle, of which readers know. It is possible that more 'Thrills' will be made known to readers in the coming novels within The Stormlight Archive.

Notes

The Thrill and the Death Rattles started around the same time, but the locations for the two fluctuate and have done so since they appeared.

According to Brandon, at Jasnah's suggestion (which came through Hoid), the people locked it (i.e., Nergaoul) in an aluminum box and threw it in the ocean. The argument for this being that anywhere they could hide it, the enemy could get to. And an Unmade would be pretty easy to find in the Cognitive Realm. One can't hide an Unmade very easily. Aluminum is going to help with doing that, but what one has to do is try to make it as inaccessible as possible. And the most inaccessible thing they could do is lock it in an aluminum box and throw it in the ocean. If they had kept it anywhere nearby, then the enemy would have been able to find it very easily, even inside an aluminum box. This method was their best guess at being able to keep it out of the enemy's hands. It is not a great solution, unfortunately. There just isn't one that they could find.

Q&A with Brandon

Q. This is a question about both The Stormlight Archive and the Mistborn series. Does The Thrill have anything to do with zinc, Rioters or Allomancy in general?

A. "They work on very similar principles." Their magic is based on similar ideas, and they do have a lot in common. A specific example would be that, "they both can affect different people to different extents and in slightly different ways. You can see that in how the Thrill affects Dalinar, and how burning zinc affects kandra differently than others on Scadrial. That is because kandra have pierced souls, so Allomancy affects them differently."