Wind and Truth Full Book Reactions (No Cosmere Edition)

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

1 hour ago, Kerberos said:

But this dissonance in itself seem obvious to me. No utilitarian is truly disinterested, not Christian truly loves their neighbour like themselves, no virtue ethicist is perfectly virtuous at all times. Show me a person who lives up to their own ethics 100% and I will show you a person with an extremely low ethical standard. The crisis requires a lack of self awareness I find implausible. The most plausible answer would be that she wasn’t fully aware of how large the disconnect was, but it just doesn’t seem that way to me.

 

I don’t want to be to negative I did really like the book that particular resolution just failed to work for me.

Not taking it negative myself at least  

I think the explanation on the page was exactly that the disconnect was quite large and she wasn't aware of it to a large degree, which is why it was such a blow to her

[jjacjackson]

I thought Sanderson delivered a wonderful Phase I ending. Particularly enjoyed:

1) Taravangian's holding of two shards. This set's up fun Cosmere implications.

2) Odium's recruitment of Blackthorn as a villain. I liked it, though easily see why some wouldn't.

3) Moash..f'ing Moash! I assumed a redemption arc was incoming. Apparently not

4) RoW hinted at it and I had heard fan theories, but I really enjoyed the Renarin & R'lain relationship development. R'lain's defense of Renarin to Mishram was great.

5) Again, I had heard fan theories, but watching the Chana & Shallan reveal was a lot of fun.

6) Is there a better ending for Kaladin? I certainly can't envision one.

7) And Adolin, that sweet Adolin! He stole the book for me.

Some meh's:

1) I was convinced that Syl's early scribe scenes were establishing her being the author of Wind and Truth. I'm fine with it being Szeth's wife, but I would have LOVED it being Sylphrena.

2) Having not one, or two, but three abandoning/releasing of oaths/powers in the finale was a bit jarring for me. Individually, each choice makes sense, but I don't have to 'like' that three character endings involved abandoning oaths / releasing powers. (shrug)

3) Jasnah - I was expecting more badassery from her. I really enjoyed the debate, but was hoping to see more "take charge" moments.

4) Does anybody else think they'd prefer to read Sunlit Man AFTER W&T?

Overall, many thanks to Brandon for another great tromp through the Cosmere.

 

[Aela Nox]

5 hours ago, jjacjackson said:

 

4) Does anybody else think they'd prefer to read Sunlit Man AFTER W&T?

 

That’s what I’m doing - reading it for the first time after WaT - it’s interesting to say the least, I feel like there’s a lot of context I wouldn’t have understood otherwise 

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

3 minutes ago, Aela Nox said:

That’s what I’m doing - reading it for the first time after WaT - it’s interesting to say the least, I feel like there’s a lot of context I wouldn’t have understood otherwise 

I read it when it came out and it made me TERRIFIED for what WaT had in store for us

there seems to still be a ton of missing stuff between WaT and Sunlit man though. I honestly thing when we're even further into the Cosmere than we are now, Sunlit man will be recommended reading for probably after SA6-10 or something

[Aela Nox]

6 minutes ago, Green Hoodie Mistborn said:

there seems to still be a ton of missing stuff between WaT and Sunlit man though. I honestly thing when we're even further into the Cosmere than we are now, Sunlit man will be recommended reading for probably after SA6-10 or something

I wonder how much of that is down to the technological advances in Nomad’s time? I haven’t finished reading yet but it seems the cosmere is far more advanced from some of the things he says. There’s probably a lot more we have no idea about at this point. 

I held off reading Sunlit Man for a while because I had found out who Nomad really was and was wondering ‘what the hell happened there’ but WaT provided some of that info for me. I think you’re right - Sunlit Man is going to make far more sense after the entire series ends, I reckon.

[DSCrankshaw]

Sunlit Man spoiler:

Spoiler

I remember that Nomad mistook someone for Kaladin and I thought that didn't make sense, since this is probably far in the future from Stormlight. But now that I know not only about the time dilation, but the fact that Kaladin's become immortal, it makes more sense.

 

Edited December 20, 2024 by DSCrankshaw
Spoilered text

[Valigus]

On 12/12/2024 at 1:34 PM, DSCrankshaw said:

I think Taravangian’s argument was less that utilitarianism did not work, and more that Jasnah did not practice it. When it came right down to it, Jasnah took care of her own. Now hypocrisy can be defended against--failing your ideals is more about you failing than the ideals failing--but Jasnah's real problem was her pride, her belief that she had everything figured out and could and would do what was needed.

 

And hypocrisy, while it does not attack the ideals directly, does give other people permission to say,  "Well, if you aren't doing it, why should I?" It could have worked on Fen even if it didn't cause a crisis of faith in Jasnah.

Part of the huge problem for Jasnah here is that she can’t argue things about epistemic position without losing. This is even specifically acknowledged by her in the debate, where she wants to say that she seeks the greatest good for the greatest number with what she has available. Which is often the requirement people are held to in regards to their actions in utilitarian moral philosophy. the problem here was if she admits that, she concedes, because taravodium is a god and has infinitely more information than her, so in part out of pride she cannot admit her own infallibility and in part she cannot concede this and say “I am wrong sometimes, but I do my best with the info I have” because he has more information. 
 

she was very unprepared, but also showed a lack of flexibility here, the only path to winning this debate as I see it would have been 

1. Admit the epistemic position(makes her seem more reasonable(cause it is reasonable))

2. Attack taravangians sincerity to undermine his epistemic advantage (which she did but not without the first position)

3. Literally just deny all the letters and orders were written by her (kind of Hail Mary tho) 

 

follow-up to this- 

 

the great irony of the ending is that dalinar in his moment of “weakness” did the utilitarian thing nobody else was strong enough to do, he damned Roshar to save the cosmere.

jasnah and taravangian in the end revealed their commitment to their ideals to be hollow, the irony being that the man who rejected them made the right choice by them, and has done so, nearly every time.

Edited December 15, 2024 by Valigus

[Hoid’s #1 Soldier]

Moving this to the main thread as I would like to discuss the cosmere at large too. 

Edited December 15, 2024 by Hoid’s #1 Soldier

[DSCrankshaw]

8 hours ago, Valigus said:

 the great irony of the ending is that dalinar in his moment of “weakness” did the utilitarian thing nobody else was strong enough to do, he damned Roshar to save the cosmere.

I wouldn't say that's quite the case. He gave up Roshar in the near term, but 1) made Taravangian everyone else's problem, to give Roshar time while Taravangian’s attention was necessarily elsewhere, and 2) gambled on Honor being able to learn and grow and ultimately reject Taravangian.

Edited December 15, 2024 by DSCrankshaw
Fix spelling.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

11 hours ago, DSCrankshaw said:

I wouldn't say that's quite the case. He gave up Roshar in the near term, but 1) made Taravangian everyone else's problem, to give Roshar time while Taravangian’s attention was necessarily elsewhere, and 2) gambled on Honor being able to learn and grow and ultimately reject Taravangian.

And had no problem permitting multiple genocides of Spren.

[Valigus]

15 hours ago, DSCrankshaw said:

I wouldn't say that's quite the case. He gave up Roshar in the near term, but 1) made Taravangian everyone else's problem, to give Roshar time while Taravangian’s attention was necessarily elsewhere, and 2) gambled on Honor being able to learn and grow and ultimately reject Taravangian.

But that rly is what’s called for here, the whole cosmere is quite explicitly at stake, and dalinars decisions will damn Roshar to save the cosmere. 
 

He had consigned 100s of thousands of innocents to suffer and probably die, in order to win, and made a decision for which he may be reviled (or at least not loved if people found out about it). The irony of the ending is that he did exactly what tarvangian has been preaching, he took a horrible action for the sake of everyone that had to be done, while jasnah and tarvangian wavered. 

[DSCrankshaw]

6 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

And had no problem permitting multiple genocides of Spren.

Did he?

"The answer was so close. Today, Dalinar had seen true honor. As Adolin stood for Azir, and Renarin set right a terrible wrong. As Jasnah picked herself up from failure, and Shallan rose above what had been done to her. And Kaladin …

"Blood of my fathers, Dalinar thought, realizing. Kaladin will preserve a piece … That’s what we need …" (WaT, Chapter 142, p. 1277)

It sounds like he foresaw what Kaladin was doing. I'm not sure whether he's talking about the spren in general, the Oathpact, or perhaps a piece of Honor contained in Kaladin's new Honorspear. But he did see what Kaladin was doing, which meant he foresaw the reforged Oathpact that would protect the spren. It's the thing that decided him on his course of action.

 

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

14 hours ago, DSCrankshaw said:

Did he?

"The answer was so close. Today, Dalinar had seen true honor. As Adolin stood for Azir, and Renarin set right a terrible wrong. As Jasnah picked herself up from failure, and Shallan rose above what had been done to her. And Kaladin …

"Blood of my fathers, Dalinar thought, realizing. Kaladin will preserve a piece … That’s what we need …" (WaT, Chapter 142, p. 1277)

It sounds like he foresaw what Kaladin was doing. I'm not sure whether he's talking about the spren in general, the Oathpact, or perhaps a piece of Honor contained in Kaladin's new Honorspear. But he did see what Kaladin was doing, which meant he foresaw the reforged Oathpact that would protect the spren. It's the thing that decided him on his course of action.

 

Agreed - I don't think any spren were killed through his actions, other than seemingly the Stormfather (for now at least)

On 12/13/2024 at 3:28 PM, DSCrankshaw said:

I remember that Nomad mistook someone for Kaladin and I thought that didn't make sense, since this is probably far in the future from Stormlight. But now that I know not only about the time dilation, but the fact that Kaladin's become immortal, it makes more sense.

I also thought that was just him hoping at that point... but maybe now with more context it's more than that! 

Hopefully Sig and Kaladin get more scenes together later. I'm still sad about Sig's relationship to his former spren. I mean... I get it, but dang. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 12/12/2024 at 7:34 PM, DSCrankshaw said:

Now hypocrisy can be defended against--failing your ideals is more about you failing than the ideals failing--but Jasnah's real problem was her pride, her belief that she had everything figured out and could and would do what was needed.

Not really. If you want to keep an ally then admitting a failure to adhere to your principles will not do the job. You'd declare yourself untrustworthy.

[heridfel]

This is basically what Dalinar had been doing for months: acknowledging that he had failed in the past and demonstrating a commitment to doing better in the future.

I would add that “sometimes I don’t live up to my principles” beats “I lack principles and am powered by negative emotions”. TOdium will claim to have principles but we see that they are discarded whenever they would conflict with his selfishness.

[Treamayne]

On 12/15/2024 at 6:40 AM, Valigus said:

she was very unprepared, but also showed a lack of flexibility here, the only path to winning this debate as I see it would have been 

1. Admit the epistemic position(makes her seem more reasonable(cause it is reasonable))

2. Attack taravangians sincerity to undermine his epistemic advantage (which she did but not without the first position)

My problems with the Jasnah/TOdium scene were:

• She's been built up for four-and-a-half books as a scholar of Logic and History, but failed to call out any of TOdium's logical fallicies (esp. ad hominum)
• She's been built up as a rhetorician (e. g. her perfect essay in OB), but never "realized" she didn't need to enage TOdium much at all - her job was to talk to and convince Fen (not debate TOdium)

I'll be honest, I have not liked Jasnah much at all in any of the books - and this whole scene still felt wrong and OOC for her to me. 

On 12/15/2024 at 6:40 AM, Valigus said:

3. Literally just deny all the letters and orders were written by her (kind of Hail Mary tho) 

Not such a Hail Mary - if she had used TOdium's tactics (ignoring the question to attack the method) it should have been easy:

• No that's not my signature, that's not my letter - you created that from investiture, didn't you. That's a forged document if anything. 

Not a lie at all. 

On 12/13/2024 at 5:59 PM, Green Hoodie Mistborn said:

I read it when it came out (Sunlit man Spoilers)

Spoiler

and it made me TERRIFIED for what WaT had in store for us

there seems to still be a ton of missing stuff between WaT and Sunlit man though. I honestly thing when we're even further into the Cosmere than we are now, Sunlit man will be recommended reading for probably after SA6-10 or something

 

On 12/13/2024 at 6:10 PM, Aela Nox said:

I wonder (Sunlit Man Spoilers)

Spoiler

how much of that is down to the technological advances in Nomad’s time? I haven’t finished reading yet but it seems the cosmere is far more advanced from some of the things he says. There’s probably a lot more we have no idea about at this point. 

I held off reading Sunlit Man for a while because I had found out who Nomad really was and was wondering ‘what the hell happened there’ but WaT provided some of that info for me. I think you’re right - Sunlit Man is going to make far more sense after the entire series ends, I reckon.

 

On 12/13/2024 at 6:28 PM, DSCrankshaw said:

(Sunlit Man Spoilers)

Spoiler

I remember that Nomad mistook someone for Kaladin and I thought that didn't make sense, since this is probably far in the future from Stormlight. But now that I know not only about the time dilation, but the fact that Kaladin's become immortal, it makes more sense.

 

Please spoiler tag your comments, or delete the posts and move all non-SA book discussion to the Cosmere Allowed Spoilers section. 

This is Stormlight only for a reason, please respect that. 

Edited December 19, 2024 by Treamayne
More Spoilers/SPAG

[+Oltux72 he/him]

16 hours ago, heridfel said:

I would add that “sometimes I don’t live up to my principles” beats “I lack principles and am powered by negative emotions”. TOdium will claim to have principles but we see that they are discarded whenever they would conflict with his selfishness.

He wasn't powered by negative emotions. He did what he had to do what it took to save Kharbranth.

[Nitpicking]

On 12/15/2024 at 6:40 AM, Valigus said:

3. Literally just deny all the letters and orders were written by her (kind of Hail Mary tho)

That could have been hilarious. Have Jasnah just casually Soulcast some air into a written document signed by Taravangian of Kharbranth, ordering that his (imaginary) ex-lover be executed for the crime of smiling at another man. Acknowledge that she just created it from thin air, and point out that she isn't even a god.

[Valigus]

3 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

That could have been hilarious. Have Jasnah just casually Soulcast some air into a written document signed by Taravangian of Kharbranth, ordering that his (imaginary) ex-lover be executed for the crime of smiling at another man. Acknowledge that she just created it from thin air, and point out that she isn't even a god.

Yeah it would’ve been pretty funny, but the problem was that it would have been fairly transparent, and taravangain can prob like force fen into a vision or something 

[Gakuka]

On 12/15/2024 at 5:40 AM, Valigus said:

 

2. Attack taravangians sincerity to undermine his epistemic advantage (which she did but not without the first position)

I *think* this is what I was practically screaming at the book for Jasnah to do, and afterwards I completely stopped caring about her character in any meaningful way. This should have been a lay-up of an argument to win, and she already said the thing that should have won it. Todium had already betrayed them once, and with so much more knowledge and resources now it's practically a guarantee that he will betray them again, and much more thoroughly, later. Jasnah could say, rightfully, that there is no way for a limited human to make a contract with a god that the god could not build in a thousand ways to subvert given enough resources and time, which Todium clearly has, by his own admission. Yes, Jasnah might betray them for what is perceived as the greater good for her people, but Todium almost certainly will, and the betrayal would be much more severe given Todium's immense power and capacity for cruelty. Yes, Todium is bound more strongly by pacts but, as they already stated in the conversation, he can find very inventive was of bending a pact to his advantage without technically violating it.

In the end I got the impression that Jasnah was simply not very good and what we've been told she's good at, and that made her a rather worthless character for me. She wasn't trapped in an unwinnable confrontation, she went in wildly unprepared for what Todium would say (somehow not even considering that Todium would attack her credibility, are you kidding me??) and she didn't argue her strongest point enough about how untrustworthy Todium was. Disappointing and character-destroying, which might have been the point but we've spent so much time building her up that it feels wrong, like when I re-read the books I'll just roll my eyes and skip her chapters because all of it comes to nothing in the end.

Loved the other character arcs :).

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

3 hours ago, Gakuka said:

In the end I got the impression that Jasnah was simply not very good and what we've been told she's good at, and that made her a rather worthless character for me. She wasn't trapped in an unwinnable confrontation, she went in wildly unprepared for what Todium would say (somehow not even considering that Todium would attack her credibility, are you kidding me??) and she didn't argue her strongest point enough about how untrustworthy Todium was

Todium has the advantage of foresight that Jasnah does not possess. He saw the best way to attack her. He laid the groundwork for it by visiting her and getting under her skin before the actual argument. she was very much trapped in an unwinnable confrontation. 

Jasnah shown time and again that her mask of indifference is just that, a mask, that covers her emotions and brain spirals. Even the smartest people get flustered and put into situations where they don't perform their best. That is very human of Jasnah, not anything else. People are holding her to WAY too high a standard IMO. 

She's smart, she's really smart, but that doesn't make her all knowing or capable of out arguing an nearly omniscient being!

And even if she had won, she still would have lost because of the Deepest Ones and the treachery of the Merchant Council already put in place and planned. It was a true Kobayashi Maru, but one she didn't know was completely unwinnable until she started participating and lost. 

 

Quote

Disappointing and character-destroying, which might have been the point but we've spent so much time building her up that it feels wrong, like when I re-read the books I'll just roll my eyes and skip her chapters because all of it comes to nothing in the end.

that's the point though, this isn't the end.

it's literally the middle of the saga and Jasnah is still around. She's now come to a nadir of her character from which she has 1-5 books to re-ascend after starting out at the high point. She's been slowly coming down from her high point since she was assassinated in WoR and now (I bet) she's reached the bottom of her arc with up to go for the rest of books 6-10

We're at the "Han is taken, Luke has his hand cut off" point of the story arc right now with a bit more resolution on some portions of the vast story. 

To judge Jasnah's earlier chapters negatively in light of where we are right now in the story would be like hating Han's character because he got trapped in carbonite and is frozen. 

Jasnah froze and didn't perform her best in an intense pressure situation. Even if she had, she still would have lost and maybe been killed by Deepest Ones and Thaylen troops after they switched allegiances. 

[Mason Wheeler]

7 hours ago, Gakuka said:

She wasn't trapped in an unwinnable confrontation, she went in wildly unprepared for what Todium would say (somehow not even considering that Todium would attack her credibility, are you kidding me??)

That tracks just fine, really.  You're expecting introspection and self-reflection, the sort of thing that makes perfect sense for a normal person.  But that's not how a psychopath thinks.

[11thHerald]

Immensely satisfied that I called Chanarach being the one to break back in 2020.

Other than that, I really liked Adolin, Shallan, and Rlain/Renarin's arcs. The ending was great, I'm really excited to see how things go from here.

 

[Kadollan]

I honestly dont like how Szeth went about with 12124. All the talk about being able to change and choose to change, he just one-sidedly decide that he and 12124 just wont fit. Shouldnt he at least try to know 12124 better and then also give 12124 chance to change and be a better spren-friend?

On 12/17/2024 at 12:12 PM, Green Hoodie Mistborn said:

Agreed - I don't think any spren were killed through his actions, other than seemingly the Stormfather (for now at least)

I also thought that was just him hoping at that point... but maybe now with more context it's more than that! 

Hopefully Sig and Kaladin get more scenes together later. I'm still sad about Sig's relationship to his former spren. I mean... I get it, but dang. 

 

[Gakuka]

9 hours ago, Green Hoodie Mistborn said:

We're at the "Han is taken, Luke has his hand cut off" point of the story arc right now with a bit more resolution on some portions of the vast story. 

To judge Jasnah's earlier chapters negatively in light of where we are right now in the story would be like hating Han's character because he got trapped in carbonite and is frozen. 

I'd say it's closer to judging the first season of Lost and not liking Locke after you find out later that Locke is just some guy making everything up. Jasnah just wasn't as good as we were led to believe she is. There's freezing up in a difficult situation and there's walking into a difficult situation completely and massively underprepared, which is what she also did. I can look past freezing up, but not anticipating things like Todium's personal attack on her credibility is something I think the Jasnah in books 1-4 just would not have done. Can we think of anything she was so storming incompetent at related directly to an argument or debate in any of those books? Of course not, she was the master of her domain in every conversation. Ruthless to a fault sometimes, but never incompetent.

I do understand that Todium knew just how to beat her, I just wish it wasn't so easy for him.

Still, great book, just don't care about Jasnah anymore. She can have a redemption arc where she actually becomes somewhat competent in books 6-10 or whatever, that's great, then she'll finally elevate to be just an average character in a world of above-average characters.

To all the Jasnah fans out there of course I'm truly happy for you, and before this book she was my favorite character, that's why her sudden out-of-character (IMO) wild incompetence was such a slap in the face for me. 

Sanderson knows what he's doing so I trust him to have an arc in mind, let's see where it goes I guess.