Bookblessed

Okay so I was so shocked at how poorly the romance was handled in this book that I finally went and made myself an account to join the discussion, so hello everyone . I know I'm also very late to the party but I just finished the book yesterday (shipping to Poland took a while...). Anyway, if anyone's interested, here are my problems with this, in my opinion, awful love triangle: 1. It's so similar to what Sanderson has done in Mistborn and while I didn't like that one, I think it was still a lot better that what we got in Oathbringer. It goes like this: a woman is having problems with her self-esteem and herself in general, which causes her to swift towards the more "adventorous" man as opposed to the one that gives her stabilisation. When she's just about to choose the former, BANG! She has a realisation! Oh how stupid I was! And she comes running to the safe option and the whole relationship is now magically perfect despite having tons of problems just 5 pages ago. Except in Mistborn Adolin and Shallan are just in the process of getting to know each other and most of their interactions is well, tee-heeing, not anything deeper. Which brings me to my next point. 2. The supposed reason why Shallan chooses Adolin is the most absurd one Sanderson could have come up with. If it was something like "Adolin makes me happy" than ok, I might have been able to understand that because it actually makes sense. But Adolin knows me? Sorry, did I miss something other that your interactions being mailny... flirting? There are two scenes I believe where they actually talk about something deeper and both made me roll my eyes. One is in Shadesmar and it is basically: "-Adolin, I have many personalities u kno -Shallan, that is weird. Also, I killed Sadeas -Oh I guess that's ok" The other being the one when she actually chooses him and it is even worse: "-Hello Adolin why so gloom -U like Kaladin -Well yeah. But I like u more cause u make me face my problems by saying "Shallan, no" in one deeper interaction in the entire book. So let's ignore that problem and get married -Oh ok" There is nothing either in WoR or Oathbringer that indicates he knows her, on the contrary, based on the interactions in both books the knowing her argument would be the one Shalladin shippers would use the most because we have actually been given scenes with deep interactions between the two. So why make that the reason why she goes for Adolin? 3. The scene between her and Adolin that I already mentioned above, when she chooses him. She says she likes Adolin because he makes her face her problems... again, where. Yes, he isn't comfortable with her having multiple personalities but where does he actually help her face the problem? By becoming drinking buddies with Veil and "somehow making it work"? This isn't you two having different tastes about furniture, this is a woman having different personalities take over her, it isn't just a thing one can compromise on. She needs actual help. The joke about how "every man wishes to have three brides u know" was so wrong, my god... Also the scene between Kaladin and Shallan on the ship where he tells her that "Wow, you're just able to stuff it in the back of your head? I wish I could do that" and that is obviously used as an argument against him because that is supposed to mean that he doesn't make her face her problems like Adolin supposedly does. But he only gets told that she's able to shove the emotions away while to Adolin, in her moment of confusion between the personalities, she tells that she's shifting between a couple of people. It's just so unfair to Kaladin's character to imply that he wouldn't help her with a problem like this where the only thing he has done the entire three books is trying to help people. But I digress. 4. The interactions between Shallan and Adolin after she chooses him. What... what is that? I've seen people defending it by saying "oh, it is how young people act, it is supposed to be written that way. you know- young love" and I've seen this argument brought up especially with the "You're beautiful" scene. I'm sorry, but I could defend the whole Twilight saga by using this argument. I'm about their age actually and I have not seen people act this stupid around each other. It's like the whole book we are given a relationship that is ok at most and then suddenly she goes "Adolin knows me" and she is now so crazy about him that the only thing she can think about is their wedding night? And then there's the whole Veil drinking buddy thing... just...no. There are many other problems I have with this but other people have covered those aspects pretty well so I'll briefly mention them: the pacing was awful, the conclusion was rushed and the "gurll arranged marriage is awesome" got old - I'm a woman myself and for the love of god Brandon please stop doing that. The only thing I can say I liked about it was Kaladin's reason for liking her - that she reminded him of Tien because she could just laugh despite the world crushing on her. That actually makes sense. If it was written more from his perspective, with him pursuing her and then realizing that he likes her because of this and then stepping back and also her having a more meaningfull relationship with Adolin along with realizing that she need stability... in my opinion it would've been so much better. I've seen many people saying that it was supposed to be that bad because Sanderson is not done with this relationship but I think I'll be the sceptical one and say that yes he is, and while he is one of my favourite writers I have to say that my theory about the whole thing is simply this: he has written it poorly and now we're stuck with it. That said if in the next book Shallan's POV starts with something like "Shallan was holding little Plotdevolin in her arms, thinking just how lucky she was. These days, Veil and Radiant have completely retreated." I think I'll go ahead and visit the Nightcrawler to ask to please remove all of Shallan's chapters from my memory.