Adolin killing 20 dudes without a shardblade was hype as hell. I like how he went into the situation noting the typical "it's actually not realistic that one guy can kill more than couple guys alone" thing so his goal is only to delay until backup arrives... and then he just kills everyone anyways
Pattern being the spy would be awesome. I suspect the answer is still Formless / another personality and Pattern is just working with that personality, as he sees all aspects of Shallan as his Radiant.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
Adolin killing 20 dudes without a shardblade was hype as hell. I like how he went into the situation noting the typical "it's actually not realistic that one guy can kill more than couple guys alone" thing so his goal is only to delay until backup arrives... and then he just kills everyone anyways
He didn't actually kill all 20 guys though, he killed about 7-8 and cut the fingers off of one other. The rest ran away. Still awesome.
Anyway I finished Part 2 and oh man, the last 5-6 chapters of that had me glued. Can't wait to get back to reading more.
Also I'd be very disappointed if Formless does end up being the spy because its literally the first thing I thought of and dismissed it as being for too obvious for Sanderson to do. Also Pattern being the sole spy would just in general be way more interesting.
Too much to unpack and too many spoilers for me to respond to Cly's post quote but suffice to say I stan most of the major listener/singers in this book, they're one of my favorite parts
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I definitely did not forget to put the 2020 GOTD Guru winner, azuarc in my sig!
Raboniel > Leshwi > Eshonai > Venli > Rlain might be my ranking at this point? Not sure where I'd put PursuerDefeated in there. I do like them all, but #1 is far above the rest. Will have to see how El turns out next book, since he didn't really have much screentime here. ---
Eshonai > Rlain > Raboniel > Venli > Leshwi. I'm biased towards the top two but I can't really stress enough how I think they are all great characters. Pursuer I don't lump in with them but he's very good at what he does.
full book spoilers Basically, these 5 (and also the separatist Listeners at the end who TAMED CHASMFIENDS) are all very interesting in that they all have unique perspectives on the war and ALL have valid points. Meanwhile the Pursuer is one of Sanderson's Saturday Morning Cartoon villains but he is sick as hell in that role.
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I definitely did not forget to put the 2020 GOTD Guru winner, azuarc in my sig!
It's very interesting that Kaladin is refraining from jumping into the defense of the tower and being the hero like he normally would. He doesn't have the mental well being to do it. It feels in general like we might be moving towards an end for him where he *truly* is done with fighting, and his new purpose helping the mentally ill is his calling. He's done with the battle. In a vacuum, I think that's a phenomenal character path for Kaladin and love the idea of going down this road with a character like this. In the context of the Stormlight Archive and the events happening, though, I think that would be pretty deeply unsatisfying for our #1 guy to just... stop contributing to the major war effort. I don't think that's what will end up happening.
What I've been thinking will happen is that discovering that some of the mentally ill just cannot be helped and truly DO need to be isolated and kept away from all others for everyone's safety and for their own protection, or that some people that you bring out of the sanitarium WILL end up killing themselves despite best efforts, will be what triggers Kaladin to accept the Fourth Ideal and say the words. I don't think it's ever been revealed in the text, and I've avoided hearing any Word of Brandon or online speculation on the matter, but I've suspected the Fourth Ideal is something along the lines of "you can't save everybody. you have to let some people die and/or suffer." Kaladin's hero complex has always forced him to put the burden of saving everyone onto himself. He's never been able to detach himself enough from the people he's sworn to help enough to accept that he can't help them all like Lirin is able to. Throwing himself into this mental illness crisis is a great way to confront that issue away from the battlefield.
It's also been mentioned (i forget if by the Sibling or Raboniel) that a Radiant of a high Ideal might still be able to use their powers inside the tower. So if he swears the Fourth Ideal, he could possibly have a decisive impact on this invasion.
The problem here though is that the mental illness treatment arc hasn't progressed far enough before this invasion for Kaladin to get to that point. So I'm not sure this is really possible. It sure seems like Navani won't be able to retake the pillar without him, even if she has her own crowning moment of awesome and becomes a Bondsmith with the Sibling. Maybe the invasion will be successful after all?
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
Do you guys like these "thoughts as we go" posts? I notice there's not really anyone else doing it - it seems people are mostly coming here after finishing the book and avoiding until they do. I enjoy giving my thoughts and hearing what other people have to say about those points, and I think I won't recall most of these details to bring them up when I'm done. I probably won't finish the book for at least a week or two anyways.
It's a bit risky I suppose as it's easy to end up reading the wrong spoiler post from a separate discussion but oh well \_()_/
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
I enjoy reading them, although I probably won't comment much for fear unintentionally spoiling something.
That said, Oathbringer spoilers for the Windrunner 4th ideal.
I hasn't been explicitly revealed in the text, but there is a chapter epigraph from Oathbringer that lines up with your thoughts - "My spren claims that recording this will be good for me, so here I go. Everyone says I will swear the Fourth Ideal soon, and in so doing, earn my armor. I simply don't think that I can. Am I not supposed to want to help people?"
Venli as a teenager was ambitious and wanted to obtain glory by bringing new forms to the tribe. But that dang Eshonai always goes running off and doesn't have to bother memorizing songs like smart diligent Venli. And now her great idea on obtaining warform is overshadowed by her stupid sister discovering humans!!!
This flashback arc isn't exactly on the right track to get me to start liking Venli... it's all of her ugliest characteristics in annoying teenage form....
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
Liking Rhythm so far. Seems a bit slower at this point (just shy of halfway through), but I expect in typical Brandon Sanderson style the last third of the book will be balls to the wall
And yeah the flashbacks honestly suck pretty bad. I really liked part 3 a lot overall aside from them, but every time I hit a flashback I was like 'ugh'.
I don't otherwise get the Venli hate though, she's fine.
I listened to a lot of Sanderson interviews leading up to the release and he mentioned that people will be disappointed with the flashbacks because they'll be expecting it to be so woven with the present like the others were, especially Dalinars. But the flashbacks are mostly irrelevant to the present, because the present plotline got completely taken over by a character he did not expect. He wouldn't reveal who that character was, feeling like it was a bit of a spoiler the reader should discover on their own.
Obviously, it's Navani fucking Kholin.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
At least the flashback chapters are relatively short. Personally I'm still enjoying them, like yeah they are the weakest part, but I never had a problem with Venli. It's refreshing to have a singer point of view.
I'm also intrigued by this Axindweth lady. Can't tell if she's someone we already know using a different name. I assume she's a worldhopper.
At least the flashback chapters are relatively short. Personally I'm still enjoying them, like yeah they are the weakest part, but I never had a problem with Venli. It's refreshing to have a singer point of view.
I'm also intrigued by this Axindweth lady. Can't tell if she's someone we already know using a different name. I assume she's a worldhopper.
she's 100% Terris, probably a ferring. don't think we know her though
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You shine, and make others shine just by being near them.
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
I wouldn't particularly disagree with most of that. I wish there was a bit more Adolin and less Shallan here - I felt like his storyline was the most compelling it's ever been, and hers isn't quite. I would've been down for fewer Kaladin PoVs too. I pretty much always enjoy Navani's stuff tho. ---
Starting to agree that the interludes aren't as cool as they used to be. This would be a good opportunity to explore how the rest of the world is dealing with the Everstorm and whatnot, but instead we just get more Taravangian.
I thought Kaladin's chapters were a lot more purposeful than they were in Oathbringer, though since his whole struggle with depression is a constant I can definitely see how it would start to grate on people. Shallan meanwhile is basically the opposite, though there was enough juice going on in her plotline that I didn't mind too much.
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I definitely did not forget to put the 2020 GOTD Guru winner, azuarc in my sig!
Kaladin's depression was fine. I think the general length of the Die Hard plot dragged though, along with there essentially being a very obvious countdown that told you how long it'll last messing with the tension was the problem
honestly, my take is exactly opposite of Cly's, except that i agree that raboniel and leshwi are good
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You shine, and make others shine just by being near them.
Also I don't know how you could possibly think we were done with Shallan's past and family connections when there was a bunch of really obvious holes
I do agree with this although for me it was personally about the execution dragging at times. Though this was really only during part 2 and she's helped by being on the B-team.
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I definitely did not forget to put the 2020 GOTD Guru winner, azuarc in my sig!
In regards to Shallan - I don't really remember all of the details of the prior books since I haven't reread them, and won't until book 5 is close to coming out, but my recollection was that we resolved a lot the details about her history several times, including finding out about killing her mom.. and dad... and stuff about her brothers, including Heloran being killed by Kaladin. And Wit coming by for a nice visit. I didn't particularly remember if there was more to uncover or not, but the first chapter in RoW where Shallan retreats into her mind at thought of remembering her past basically made me go "oh, so we are we doing this again? I just hope he doesn't dangle this every chapter for the entire book until the climax at the end" and here we are...
I really enjoyed that mystery the first time as we pieced together she was a shard bearer.... and what she did with the shard. And then again several more times. But now this feels like we are repeating the same thing over and over again.
I do like the three personality arrangement that has been going on and honestly, I would be down for that being a permanent part of Shallan and not just something she has to "get over" and be normal again. I loved Legion, after all! But I dislike the way Shallan retreats so heavily at the mere mention of her childhood, when it's a topic we've already spent so much time peering into. It's not like we have no idea what her childhood was like. There may be further holes to fill, maybe an important hole like Formless always existing or Shallan having always been a Ghostblood, but this running away thing feels mostly like we are being teased about a secret we already know most of the answer to, which is pretty tedious when Shallan does it at the literal drop of a hat.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
Shallan - We never found out how or why she became a Radiant with a shardblade in the first place, exactly what the deal was with her mother (in fact we don't know almost anything about her at all), the full extent her father was tied with the Ghostbloods, etc. Heck, even the Helaran thing isn't fully explored- we basically just know he was a Skybreaker and that's it.
There is a LOT of Shallan's past that is still up in the air. We did find out some big revelations, but it was pretty obvious imo that the plotline wasn't anywhere near over.
I do think I'm probably going to end up putting RoW at the bottom of my list of the books honestly, but its mostly because of pacing issues and the overall main plot themes not being all that strong compared to the others, and not repetition, which I haven't felt at all.
This Kaladin Wit dream is even better than his chat with Zahel. Design is a wonderful addition to the act, I hope we find ways to include her for future performances.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
Is cooperation with Raboniel possible? With Leshwi? It seems clear that Venli is going to swap sides but is it possible for a singer defection? Or is this all just token manipulation from Raboniel to keep Navani working on her research, and Leshwi's sympathetic attitudes throughout the book just do not extend this far?
Adolins trial is pretty cool. I REALLY hope Shallan does not perform Mraize's plan for Kelek. That would completely destroy any faith spren could ever put into humans again and it's very frustrating that she doesn't even consider it, and it would be a move into straight up villainy for her. The lie she tells herself of just working ghostbloods to gain information on them would no longer be believable.
I'm hoping for a touching moment from Maya or perhaps all of the deadeyes to turn this around for Adolin.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
Overall I still think it was the weakest book due to some weird pacing and the overall theme not being as strong as the others, but it still held its own and had a lot of memorable and good moments. I don't think it comes as any surprise or even spoiler I thought the ending was pretty great, it's a Sanderson book after all.
I didn't make the Kelsier connection til I read the spoilers in this topic and wow I can't believe I missed that. That is certainly a reveal all right. And Taravangian becoming Odium is an extremely interesting turn I didn't see coming. It almost feels like this was the 'halfway point' in the series where we have a big turn and go into something greater scope, if we didn't already have a clear indication from Sanderson that book 5 is going to be that.
As far as the actual tower conflict, it was definitely the weakest of the finales across the books IMO. Teft dying and Kaladin swearing the fourth ideal was pretty emotional, as well as Navani becoming a Bondsmith, but it didn't quite have the punch that I have come to expect from the series so far. Still good, and man Raboniel was a great character. Easily one of the most interesting characters in the book. Also I am fully on the 'screw Moash' train now.
I think the bit I appreciate the most from the ending though is that Sanderson gave Eshonai a nice send off. She was one of the most tragic characters in the series and deserved far better than she got, and its nice to see she at least got to live her dream at the end.
I think having just reread them I'd rank the books 2 > 3 > 1 > 4, but there's not really a big quality gap between any of them.
I'm surprised you think the pacing is weird. My initial thoughts was that the book was much better paced than past books (except maybe book 2), though people also seemed to not like Oathbringer's pacing which I had no major issue with so maybe I'm not the best judge. But I thought the choice to lead with a mini-Sanderlanche, and then to include another as a climactic turning point at the end of Part 2, did wonders for the pacing. The only complaint is that the beginning of act 2 can drag on a little. I agree with you that the finale of the Urothiru conflict was good but felt weak, and thinking on it now I'm wondering if part of that is because that conflict is spread out across the back half of the book. Which IMO is better pacing even if it devalues Sanderson's usual style of "cram everything into the final act."
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I definitely did not forget to put the 2020 GOTD Guru winner, azuarc in my sig!
I also think Oathbringer's pacing was pretty bad. In fact, I thought it was worse the 2nd time through in my recent reread. It made up for it in other areas, though.
And I actually think that a big part of the reason the pacing felt like it dragged to me in RoW is exactly the reason of what you said makes it good to you the conflict being stretched out over 3 entire parts with no real major developments that changed the nature of the conflict absolutely killed the pacing of the back half of the book. I feel like nothing at all happened between the beginning of part 4 and the ending in terms of anything actually changing. I mean obviously there was a lot of development for Venli, Navani, Raboniel, and the nature of stormlight, but otherwise nothing happened. It was like an entire half of the book was nothing but the Shallan chapters from Way of Kings, instead of having those broken up by the more exciting Kaladin and Dalinar chapters. The only 'break' where something seemed to have actually happened was Kaladin doing another fight for a tower fabrial, but aside from the glove thing being a weird kinda interesting gimmick, it didn't actually progress anything either- it was purely a fight to maintain the status quo.
The Shallan / Veil stuff was pretty good. Didn't feel the repetition throughout the book benefitted it much though. Will miss Veil a lot.
The Dalinar / Ishar stuff was alright. Definitely did not feel like it belonged in the climax.
Szeth from the outside really doesn't seem like somebody they should be keeping around.... Being inside his head for book five is gonna be a wild ride..
Rlain was kinda weird. The climax is happening and he's just constantly like "yeah i guess I should just lay low and wait a couple hours and see what happens". It's like, dude, Navani is upstairs bleeding out with Moash menacingly approaching with an honorblade and a spren killing anti stormlight dagger right now man come on it's time to do something. I like him a lot though and I feel like there's a lot of potential with him. Sanderson has already revealed that the back five flashback arcs are Lift, Renarin, Ash, Taln, and Jasnah, but I feel like the Heralds are a jebait. Rlain has strong main character potential.
The Venli stuff was meh. I definitely agree with her... she's weak and confused. I don't enjoy reading about her and her progress doesn't really satisfy me. She's now where she should have been at the START of her flashback novel......
The Eshonai final flashback was beautiful.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
Talk of Dalinar becoming honor - that does seem like something a man of his caliber is on the path of. But at the same time.... I think that will be just as much of a bad end as Taravangian becoming Odium. Cultivation will be 2/2 for putting extremely powerful tyrants in control of the shards.... Dalinar has a strong sense of honor and morality, but he also is very quick to decide that he knows best and enforcing that view onto others whether they like it or not. We see it in his parenting towards Adolin. We see it in the direct control he keeps exerting over the Stormfather. It doesn't feel like he's trying to direct the Stormfather towards a better way.... he's going to force the Stormfather to go the way he wants. We also see it in some off hand thoughts he has about Fen's Thaylen City being partially governed by influential merchants, the Azish system where the Emperor is more symbol than monarch, and in Jasnah's ideas about reducing the power of the monarchy in Alethkar. He thinks all of this is foolish and that the monarch should take control... and he has thoughts about how he could help them maintain or increase their power. He's restraining from acting on these thoughts... but if there was no singer / Fused / Odium type threat... would he? What would this guy do if he actually became Honor?
Cultivation thinks she put a well meaning intelligent person in control of the shard of Odium... and it's clear she's wrong. I think she'll be wrong about making Dalinar into Honor as well. He'll become a villain... if he manages to avoid becoming Odium's champion to make it that far.
Thaidakar. Seems there's rampant speculation that Kelsier is the head of the Ghostbloods, especially with that Word of Brandon fanning the flames. I think in terms of capability and style... yeah, it kinda does seem like Kelsier. But... the Ghostbloods are at best amoral, at worst deliberate murderers who will harm anybody and everything to achieve their goals. One of Kelsier's best character defining moments was being ashamed of how much he let his hatred of the nobility drive him to monstrous acts. That's not Kelsier on a normal day. Kelsier cares about people, and so I have a hard time imagining him being directly behind these assholes. All in all, it's very possible Kelsier is behind the ghostbloods but I'm not sure that I want him to be.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
Is there any indication Taravangian's any more intelligent than Rayse was? His whole deal was that the intelligence he gained was the same sort of bonus intelligence shard holders get, to a lesser extent. Rayse would've had exactly the same thing.
Plus, Cultivation apparently has the best (or among the best, at least) future sight of the Shards, so I'd assume she knew what sort of stuff Taravangian would get up to after becoming Odium. I kinda suspect that part of her plan includes the new Odium killing her and Lift taking her place, but we probably won't discover the truth to that extent until book 10... ---