Benedictify

I didn't say I thought it was bad as-is It's fun to think about what a scene does for the flow of a story, and how it would be in different order. I was wondering what it would be like if you have that same prologue, slice it into pieces and put it elsewhere in the book.

[I also posted this on reddit. I'm curious to see what you all think as well.] How Way of Kings Should Have Begun The novel should have started with Szeth, who "...wore white on the day he was to kill a king." The scene of Aharietiam is confusing, especially to a reader being introduced to the Cosmere with this book, who doesn't understand what happens after death there. It confused me terribly on first reading it and it was my first Sanderson book. It's a steep learning curve to a very complex world. Aharietiam could have been told in epigraphs, perhaps at the starts of the interlude sections. Or it could have been left very ambiguous, another unfolding mystery, so we only gradually learn the truth behind the legends in the present. Another option is through fragments discovered by Shallan and Jasnah. Szeth's scene is an action scene, a very exciting one. It sets up the bizarre nature of Radiant powers, it tells all kinds of clues about the world through incidental details, and it gives us a compelling character sketch, the assassin who kills with tears and regret while descending into madness. What jobs does Kalak's scene do? It establishes the time elapsed, 4,500 years. It establishes the immortality of the Heralds, that there are ten of them. It introduces the Honorblades; though Szeth does that as well. It gives a glimpse of the Desolation wars, that there have been many of them, and the Heralds prepare mankind. And that they are tired and tortured and broken, and they leave Taln behind, alone, to become The Bearer of Agonies. Heralds, Honorblades, repeating Desolations, the Heralds' torture and giving up, Taln stopping the cycle. Actually, you have five parts right there, and you have five parts in the book... I would put one at the end of each part. Then to finish the book, right after seeing the Heralds reluctantly giving him up to be tortured alone at the end of part five, we have Wit's monologue and Taln showing up at Kholinar. That's a bit of whiplash, but the good kind, and a good cliffhanger.

As it turns out,

Good point. However, I wasn't talking about his accents or disguises. In The Lost Metal, On the WoB, I was looking at that one and others. There are some WoB's that suggest he's not entirely sure whether some of those things are savantism or resonances; I posit that Brandon himself doesn't exactly know what's going on, and he's still figuring it out. If that’s true, he should go with my idea

Text color: That is extremely odd, I didn't do that on purpose.....

Wayne can put on a person's hat and see a lot about who they are, and what their life has been like. Gold, allomantically, shows a person's life. Speed bubbles are like time compressed into now. You could interpret a common theme: showing a life compressed into a moment. I think the hat isn't part of the magic, it helps *him* focus his mind on it. We can look at Wax's steel bubble similarly. Iron increasing his weight is almost like pulling the quantity into himself. Iron allomantically is about pulling. The iron pulls his steelpush in to surround him and wraps it around himself; like gathering up the blankets on your bed into a bunch around you. Maybe resonances are like the qualities of each power acting on *each other*. Taking the elements of the metals - pushing and pulling, external and internal, physical/ mental/ enhancement/ time and physical/ mental/ spiritual - and shuffling them like a deck of cards.

Kaladin's Fifth Ideal will be "I will never give up." There will be a new Oathpact, created by Ishar and/or Dalinar. Kaladin will take it onto himself alone, like Taln. He will go to Braize to be tortured, at least til Book 6, if not longer. He is "The Spear That Would Not Break", to quote him during the fight with Amaram in Oathbringer, and he will be the new "Bearer of Agonies," as Taln was.

It’s fun to read your “blog” and hear your reactions I agree, this is a good place to put it! I do think it’s a pattern of his that the middle starts to feel slow. The endings can be pretty spectacular though.

I have a suspicion that the killing of Adonalsium might not be what it sounds like. Maybe they were a willing participant in what happened. A possible foreshadowing of a possibly repeating theme in the Cosmere.

You should do a blog! It’ll be like the youtube videos of people reacting to watching movies they haven’t seen yet

I’m wondering what’s going to happen with Vyre. It seems like there is destined to be a confrontation between he and Kaladin, probably many. Are they turning him into a new supervillain like Amaram? The way Khen and the other parshmen “wanted to be near him” reminded me of the bridgemen’s devotion to Kaladin. Is he taking over from Jezrien in some way, being that he killed him (or trapped him...?) and he has Jez’s Honorblade. Anyway I’m rambling a bit. What do you think Vyre’s role or purpose will be?

If Azure had gone with our heroes back to Urithiru, she would have found “Vasher”, the previous owner of the weapon she’s looking for; and in Thalen City she would have found Szeth

Odium is defeated by the Care Bear Stare

I just realized that the title of each of Brandon's Stormlight books is named after a book relevant in the story. Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer.

Kaladin actually claims responsibility for too much, carrying the weight of everyone who dies and dwelling on his perceived failures. There's a bit of a Moash - Dalinar - Kaladin continuum there.