I'm actually getting overall frustrated with this book.
Navani manipulating the sibling into revealing the locations of the nodes was so dumb. she didn't have the resources to protect it well, so pushing that secret out into the open just makes it obviously way more likely to be found out. Even if she couldn't anticipate the eavesdropping (which she should have), her knowing makes it more likely someone will find out about it from her. Telling Kaladin, or Dabbid, or her scribes, or anyone, in order to enact defenses, make it far more likely it will be found out. Defenses were never the solution, they are in an enemy held stronghold, the only path was keeping it hidden and the best way to do that is to keep it secret. That such a "smart" character doesn't consider this and just keeps playing her game to force the secret out and then gets burned by it to feel the narrative impact of her failure was, IMO, a pretty weak writing mistake. This didn't happen
I feel like that's becoming a bit too prevalent in this book. Sanderson has something he wants to happen so he spends way to long setting it up just so he can pay it off. But the set up isn't as good as it should be, like being forced with Navani here, or it's simply taking way too long. I don't know how much longer I can take Kaladin repeating the same things over and over every time about the struggle he has to go through when he has to take action, or the denial and withdrawal Shallan goes through every time stuff about her past comes up. she can't reveal her true nature, so tells Veil "no" and she disappears. This was interesting... .but it's getting tiring. How many times does this need to play out before anything is going to be addressed? Honestly, I thought we'd already resolved the secrets of her past coming into RoW, so I was pretty surprised when... we started revisiting it basically every single Shallan chapter, hinting at a climax that will pay off at the end of the book. As I approach part 4, I can only hope that it does pay off and I don't have to spend the fifth book repeating these sequences again.
Hopefully there's some kind of pay off to these flashback chapters.... I don't know why we are seeing so much sibling rivalry and jealousy between Eshonai and Venli. What does this inform us on? I liked Eshonai, but she's already dead. we already knew all about Venli's ugly character flaws, and it's just showing us how this is show she has always been, thoroughly. Why deepen that negative view I already have of Venli - are Rlain and her radiant powers reforming her at the end of the book going to make that worthwhile somehow?
Sanderson is normally so good at setting things up subtly so that they pay off phenomenally in the Sanderlanche but I wonder if the sheer length of these books is causing him to make errors in pacing and repeating things.
I enjoy the game of cat and mouse in the tower in general. I love that Urithiru is such a detailed exploration of the "home base" that is present for so many "good guys" in all kinds of stories. Where does this highly advanced and useful home base even come from and how does it work? Almost all stories just take those kinds of bases for granted but we've spent a lot of time getting to know Urithiru.
Raboniel and Leshwi are entertaining. A lot of Navani's science experiments have been neat, but the thing with the glove pushed it too far. Explaining that thing to Kaladin bored me to ears. The Reckoners has a lot of gadgets like that but that was a little too much of the details. Adolin has been wonderful. I was getting tired of Taravangian, he seemed like such mysterious and interesting character in the Way of Kings, but by Oathbringer I felt like we were just going through the motions of playing him out, we already know exactly what he's doing, and I REALLY felt that way in this book. Dumb Taravangian might manage to bring this back from the edge though, I'm interested in this third interlude.
Also I swear to god, Dalinars offhand thoughts about how he should help Fen rid herselves of those pesky merchants that participate in ruling Thaylan City or how Jasnah would be crazy to weaken the strength of the monarch better not result in a power grab because "he knows best" >_>
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG