why the time skip?

[king of nowhere]

when brandon first said that there would be a 1 year time skip between the books, i assumed that nothing particularly important had happened in the meanwhile. nothing worth narrating.

but! lots of things happened!

kaladin had a lot of confrontations with the fused. he recruited more squires as long as he had willing spren. shallan infiltrated the sons of honor. somebody made a trip to aimia, where one of rock sons got some shards.

there's just so much. why not write it too?

the only reason i can imagine is, there was little character development involved. well, except kaladin got depressed again.

so, all in all, it's been an eventful year. why did brandon decide to not narrate it?

[Halyo_Alex]

20 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

somebody made a trip to aimia, where one of rock sons got some shards.

This was the big one to me. "Wait, they WENT to AIMIA?! What in Damnation?!"

[+Child of Hodor]

So that this 4,500 years in the making desolation to end all desolations lasted longer than like 3 months. 

The first book covers a lot of time but WoR and OB cover about 3-4 months combined with a week in between each. Books 4-5 will probably cover a few months as well. 
 

The trip to Aimia will be covered in the Dawnshard Novella.

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by Child of Hodor

[GudThymes]

6 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

So that this 4,500 years in the making desolation to end all desolations lasted longer than like 3 months. 

Yeah, although I wish I got to see the events that happened in between OB and RoW (anxiously waiting Dawnshard) I would prefer that the time skip happen between books rather than in the middle. I've never enjoyed timeskips in the middle of a book. I find that they're either not well distinguished and your timeline gets a little fuzzy or they break my immersion. Whereas if it's been books it's much easier for me to mentally accept the missing narrative.

Maybe I'm just weird.

Edited August 4, 2020 by GudThymes
no, I'm definitely weird

[Greywatch]

I've been enjoying the time skip very much - it feels fresh and exciting, like really catching up with these characters, learning something new about them again. It's great for me, because whatever was skipped, no matter how cool it sounds, is what Brandon decided was less exciting than whatever happens in the rest of the book. I'm psyched!

[Karger]

Probably because downtime tends to be kind of boring.  We have training montages for a reason.  We don't want to sit through Kaladin's workout routine every day for a year(although maybe some of us do, no judgement).

[Zelly]

I think Brandon must like leaving us with all these little mysteries to uncover, like sanding slowly blowing off a dino fossil.  Jasnah and Hoid's traveling conversation at the end/after WoR always drives me crazy.  All we (presumably) know is that he drew portraits of the Heralds for her, and that wasn't discovered until halfway through Oathbringer.

We don't even know enough to know what we've missed and I love it. 

 

[+Oltux72]

8 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

there's just so much. why not write it too?

It took a year. In accumulated terms a lot happened, but it was a steady development and each unit of time little happened

8 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

the only reason i can imagine is, there was little character development involved. well, except kaladin got depressed again.

so, all in all, it's been an eventful year. why did brandon decide to not narrate it?

The density of events was low. It would have been many small episodes divided by a few weeks between each of them.

[DarthHoid]

I just wanna hear more about Kaladin's little fling. Sounds like he had a fun night after some drinks and hooked haha

[+Oltux72]

8 minutes ago, Firespir said:

The Herals are being interviewed by Jasnah. Apart from the more major and obvious things, I wonder how did the Ardenture and the Vorin church as a whole react to this. Their Gods are actually here spewing all kind of blasphemy. One of them is even dead, more dead than usual at least, provided Ash told them about this. I foresee a collapse, sort of like a Schism in the church, maybe there's even violence involved, where some of the ardents end up on Odium's side. This can also boost the technological output of the enemy.

May I suggest you start a separate thread for this topic? It is quite interesting deserving more attention and is misplaced here.

[rjl]

10 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

so, all in all, it's been an eventful year. why did Brandon decide to not narrate it?

Because.... This book is going to be longer than Oathbringer despite the time skip. Can only fit so much in a book - and Brandon only has so much time to write.

Though the Dawnshard Novella will help a little.

[BloomAgeOne]

I'm a big fan of the time jump. I think that although it is evident that things have happened between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, it hasn't changed the landscape of the story to the point that we will need to transition a lot to catch up. I'm looking forward to seeing where all of the characters are at, particularly Ash and Taln!

[Jenet]

I just love how Sanderson in the first chapters of each sequel gives us a lot of answers to questions everyone has discussed for years, and then just runs off releasing loads of new and exciting mysteries. What I hate with other, more soap opera-type stories is that there are story lines that never ends, conflicts that go on and on with the same characters and the same logic, just different people that stab each other or resent each other, it's so boring and nagging. Yeay, Sanderson, keep it up!

[Lidolas]

The time skips seem necessary to keep to his 10 book outline.  While I would love a 20 book SA series, I think I'd rather he keep it to 10 and also write about other Cosmere worlds. 

[Harbour]

I love the time skip.

It serves as both the reset and room to use for plot that matters. We already enjoying its fruits as we jumped into full blown war, espionage stuff, flying ships, new fabrials and stuff.

Its also gives the sense of world living its life, changing, with events going on and characters moving too.

Characters got some time to breath freely and accumulate the experience, emotions and knowledges to explore now. We already enjoying its fruits with Navani, Kaladin and Shallan.

I mean, reading about Navani thinking on how to make flying ship work, Jasnah interviewing Heralds, Kaladin training new Windrunners and Shallan doing nothing yet for 1000 pages would be kinda boring.  Rock's daughter trip to Aimia stuff is fine enough for spin-off novel but not main plot.

Edited August 5, 2020 by Harbour

[I Am A Fish]

I'm sorry to be a parrotfish, but the time skip makes everything so much better. It turns our characters from, green recruits to hardened veterans. It gives fabrial technology a chance to improve. It allows Sanderson to make an ARMS RACE. THERE IS GOING TO BE AN ARMS RACE.

As you can see. I'm very excited.

[+robardin]

In one sense, I found the "time jump" if anything to be surprisingly short. Meaning, given all the implied events and developments that happened between the end of OB and the first several chapters of RoW, it feels like that could/should have been at least 18 months if not 2-3 years... Designing, testing, and building Roshar's first flying barge fabrial, going to Aimia and back, building up to 50 full Windrunners and a couple hundred squires, Dalinar becoming a walking highstorm perpendicularity, that was all done in just one year or so?

I mean, I know the Final Desolation going on around you certainly imparts a certain urgency of time to everything, but wow!

But that's why I find the early released chapters of RoW such compelling reading. Every chapter drops hints of what will surely be explored further as flashbacks, all of them huge. Like, they've learned so much about the Fused from Ash (but not Taln, who I guess is still mostly catatonic), but not about the Sibling and the Secret of Urithiru?

Does Taln regain sanity when he's close by to Perpendicular Dalinar like happened at Thaylen Fields? If so, why isn't he traveling with Dalinar on the Fourth Bridge, or maybe he is?

[Michael Portz]

I can only join the bandwagon, the focus on stuff that is important for the whole story is the right thing to do. 

<heresy>
Perhaps this was one of the things he learned from his work on WoT, which imho has at least 2 books in the first ten which I could have done without *duckandcover*
</heresy>

 

[Solant]

I like it. It had a distinct "What I Did During My Summer Vacation" feel to it, or like when a Tv show breaks between seasons, and those same 4 months pass in the show and you can't wait to find out what your favorite characters have been up to. It's very exciting!

[king of nowhere]

i liked it for starsight, because while those months were eventful, nothing that happened was particularly momentous. but in this case i really feel like we're missing stuff

[Chaos]

To me, Brandon's a storyteller. I want him to write the best books possible. If the year doesn't come to a cohesive story, I just don't think he'd write it.

I can understand why some would want to see what happened in the meantime, but then you don't get to have fun things like a big ol' airship popping in to save the day. You need time to progress for that. But realistically, he's doing this so this book is a more interesting story.

[+Child of Hodor]

2 hours ago, Chaos said:

To me, Brandon's a storyteller. I want him to write the best books possible. If the year doesn't come to a cohesive story, I just don't think he'd write it.

I can understand why some would want to see what happened in the meantime, but then you don't get to have fun things like a big ol' airship popping in to save the day. You need time to progress for that. But realistically, he's doing this so this book is a more interesting story.

Yeah. On a similar note that’s why I am totally cool with no novella between 5 & 6. A lot of the fun of back 5 will be seeing how young characters like Lift and Renarin have changed then exploring the big moments in flashbacks. 

Im sure we’ll get their sad childhoods too, but some flashbacks will be in the 10-15 year gap. 
 

[Aminar]

Lots happened. But not a lot of importance to the plot happened. It would just be a big action grind. And while that sounds awesome, it isn't. Not on the scope of a Stormlight book. 

[+robardin]

16 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

i liked it for starsight, because while those months were eventful, nothing that happened was particularly momentous. but in this case i really feel like we're missing stuff

And we'll find out about that stuff, either in flashback or simply as characters talk about and deal with What Happpened.

Things don't have to be presented in POVs, pushing some things to the realm of "back story" is what lends depth to world building, and in this case pushing a year's worth of critical developments into a skipover time lends a certain urgency. Those events were interesting and important, but inasmuch as they led to what's happening NOW which is EVEN MORE IMPORTANT.

[king of nowhere]

On 7/8/2020 at 1:35 AM, Chaos said:

To me, Brandon's a storyteller. I want him to write the best books possible. If the year doesn't come to a cohesive story, I just don't think he'd write it.

I can understand why some would want to see what happened in the meantime, but then you don't get to have fun things like a big ol' airship popping in to save the day. You need time to progress for that. But realistically, he's doing this so this book is a more interesting story.

ah, well. as far as that is concerned, yes, i also have faith that brandon is a good writer and knows what he's doing.

it still can leave me puzzled.

9 hours ago, robardin said:

And we'll find out about that stuff, either in flashback or simply as characters talk about and deal with What Happpened.

jasnah had a big solo adventure in shadesmar while everyone else was doing book 2, and we never learned anything about it. only that she came out looking like an action survivor protagonist.

yes, i also get that there are enough characters and plots going on that we can't follow all of them. but strangely, i never got that feeling with the wheel of time, that i missed seeing what character X did in situation Y that was never shown.