What do you think of Lift?

[Conure1243 He/Him]

I have gotten two very different responses to this question. Either "Lift is great!", or "Lift is the worst!". I'm trying to figure out what the general answer is.

[Entr0pic He/him]

For me, I’m fine with lift. She doesn’t evoke any kind of emotion within me

 

off topic, but this shouldn’t be in gen Brandon discussion. It should go in the stormlight forums. @#1 Taln Fan, could you help with that?

[#1 Taln Fan he/him]

@Conure1243 As Entropic said, Stormlight questions should go in the Stormlight Archives section of the forums. (I've put it in the non WaT section, so any Wind and Truth spoilers should be put inside spoiler boxes) As the General Brandon Discussion forum description says, it's for non-spoiler Brandon discussion not related directly to the books. 

9 minutes ago, Entr0pic said:

@#1 Taln Fan, could you help with that?

Just for future reference, please report any misplaced posts instead of pinging a particular moderator. 

[Entr0pic He/him]

5 minutes ago, #1 Taln Fan said:

@Conure1243 As Entropic said, Stormlight questions should go in the Stormlight Archives section of the forums. (I've put it in the non WaT section, so any Wind and Truth spoilers should be put inside spoiler boxes) As the General Brandon Discussion forum description says, it's for non-spoiler Brandon discussion not related directly to the books. 

Just for future reference, please report any misplaced posts instead of pinging a particular moderator. 

Thank you, and sorry, I’ll do that 

[Conure1243 He/Him]

11 minutes ago, #1 Taln Fan said:

@Conure1243 As Entropic said, Stormlight questions should go in the Stormlight Archives section of the forums. (I've put it in the non WaT section, so any Wind and Truth spoilers should be put inside spoiler boxes) As the General Brandon Discussion forum description says, it's for non-spoiler Brandon discussion not related directly to the books. 

Just for future reference, please report any misplaced posts instead of pinging a particular moderator. 

Good to know! Thank you, and I'll try to pay more attention to that next time.

[Returned he/him]

I liked Lift a lot at first but over time she's been too one-note for me. She hasn't gotten a whole lot of character development yet (though she's supposed to get more attention in the next set of books), but she shows up too often for her catch phrase and singular behaviors to support. By the end of Oathbringer I winced every time she entered a scene. Sometimes those scenes ended up being good, but mostly I wish she wasn't there (or was developed better along the way).

Edited October 24, 2025 by Returned

[Lord Stormer]

I generally tolerated Lift, sometimes even like that she gives a distinct voice apart from the rest of the cast - who are often grave and gloomy. Variation is good, even darker sagas have their own emotional outliers, but the Stormlight Archive has this problem of maintaining the right atmosphere in the last two books. Her negative reception may be more about handling of scenes - and if you've read Wind and Truth, I mean prose.

[Vatsug]

Negative-neutral I guess. I don't HATE her but don't particularly like her either. Usually she's not around enough for it to be an issue though. There was some interesting moments in WoR and the lifelight stuff but I generally find that her shtick grows old pretty quick.

[The-Rizzler]

Lift is great!  She’s one of the only characters in the series who actually does anything and isn’t constantly moping around feeling bad for herself.

[ChillPenguin]

Up until WaT, I had a hard time identifying with Lift. A big part of that, I think, is that Brandon is hiding her trauma/issues for the back half and we just see her messing around but don’t see why. I tried to chalk it up to her being a kid, and that helped a little.
 

I understand that Brandon will explore these things in the last 6 books, and she’s not the only character that’s been given this treatment. I can’t say I would definitely like her if I knew more about her, but it might help

[Nitpicking]

Lift is unimportant, even in her own novella. As a result, I can't judge her yet.

What I mean is: because Brandon is reserving her major story for the Voidlight Archive, even in Edgedancer she feels peripheral to the story (despite it being about her).

[karaiwulf fæ/fær]

On 5/9/2025 at 1:04 PM, Returned said:

I liked Lift a lot at first but she's over time she's been too one-note for me. She hasn't gotten a whole lot of character development yet (though she's supposed to get more attention in the next set of books), but she shows up too often for her catch phrase and singular behaviors to support. By the end of Oathbringer I winced every time she entered a scene. Sometimes those scenes ended up being good, but mostly I wish she wasn't there (or was developed better along the way).

I think this is kinda the point of Lift.  She's fundamentally scared of changing, so she will always be one-note until she gets over that.

I just recently got done with her interlude in RoW, and that seriously stuck with me.  I cried a lot because her specific brand of not wanting to change touched on my own fears when I was about her age.  I think Lift is one of the better characters because she wears her trauma right on her sleeve, but not in a disruptive or bad way, either.  She's still a kid, playing at being a thief.  She adds a bit of whimsy and relief to a world on the brink.

[Returned he/him]

4 minutes ago, karaiwulf said:

I just recently got done with her interlude in RoW, and that seriously stuck with me.  I cried a lot because her specific brand of not wanting to change touched on my own fears when I was about her age.  I think Lift is one of the better characters because she wears her trauma right on her sleeve, but not in a disruptive or bad way, either.  She's still a kid, playing at being a thief.  She adds a bit of whimsy and relief to a world on the brink.

I like that angle as you describe it and am definitely looking forward to more of her perspective in the future. I'm still hoping for a bit more text instead of subtext, but I feel very confident we'll get it and that it will color my impression of her on re-reads afterwards. As her own thing she probably has more going on than I've properly received, but so far I've been more invested in the overall stories and less in Lift herself since she's so similar to where she started. Do you have any specific changes or developments for her that you're looking forward to? Are you dreading her losing some of her... not quite innocence, but... youth? (I'm almost officially old now, so I've lost some touch with a character like Lift).

[karaiwulf fæ/fær]

27 minutes ago, Returned said:

Do you have any specific changes or developments for her that you're looking forward to? Are you dreading her losing some of her... not quite innocence, but... youth?

I'm really looking forward to her actually confronting her trauma and her fear of changing.  I think she's got a tonne of potential and I can't wait to see how that unfolds.

I'm not dreading her losing her youth.  I think that's really the only way for her to progress as a character.  She needs to confront that fear before it controls her further.

I do find it a bit funny that she went to Cultivation to stay youthful though.  The idea that what amounts to the deity of growth to keep her from growing is very peak irony.

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

At the current state, I find Lift to be one of the most annoying and intolerable characters in the series. Her antics aren't charming, her whole stealing food thing was funny exactly once, she can't seem to ever take anything seriously, and everything about her behavior just feels incredibly out of place for the world of Roshar and the overall tone of the story. Every time she shows up, it pulls me out of the scene, because she is so jarringly off compared to every other character in the series.

And it's the same jokes and the same thing every time. Like @Returned pointed out, she is extremely one-note. In understand that is the point, that she needs to come to terms with the fact that things change, but even though her presence doesn't necessarily make the story worse, it definitely makes reading it less enjoyable. On all of my rereads, I skip all lift-focused chapters, I'm that fed-up with having to read about her.

I know she's just a kid, but that doesn't change the fact that she's an annoying, and refuses to ever be serious about anything. I've had people compare her to Luffy (from One Piece) before, and that is certainly an apt description, because he is also one of the most intolerably annoying characters I've ever had the displeasure to experience. I made it about 7 minutes into episode 1 of One Piece because I just couldn't stand hearing his voice or watching his antics for one second longer.

I hope she's mentally matured a bit in the time skip to book 6, because I truly do not think I can make it through a book with current Lift as the primary POV character.

[StanLemon]

I disliked Lift in her first appearance but she has grown on me and I like her quite a lot now

[Nitpicking]

On 10/20/2025 at 1:46 PM, DracoAdamantus said:

At the current state, I find Lift to be one of the most annoying and intolerable characters in the series. Her antics aren't charming, her whole stealing food thing was funny exactly once, she can't seem to ever take anything seriously ...

But she does. She takes (for example) rescuing Vasher very seriously. She covers it with humor, but she hates the idea of someone being held prisoner and abused. She does it in a funny way, but she steals all that grain because she can't tolerate the idea of hungry people right next to a giant pile of food. (This is, by the way, almost certainly a reference to the Prophet Mohammed, Brandon being the hyperliterate guy he is.)

[DracoAdamantus he/him]

On 10/23/2025 at 9:58 PM, Nitpicking said:

She takes (for example) rescuing Vasher very seriously. She covers it with humor, but she hates the idea of someone being held prisoner and abused. She does it in a funny way, but she steals all that grain because she can't tolerate the idea of hungry people right next to a giant pile of food.

The covering everything with humor is the crux of the annoyance. Even when she is being serious, she is still behaving like it is a joke. Even when she cares, she doesn't act like she does.

It's that inability to turn off the comedy when it's inappropriate that I can't stand. I've known people like that, and they are some of the most insufferable people to be around.

[Clarkmon22 He/Him]

2 hours ago, DracoAdamantus said:

The covering everything with humor is the crux of the annoyance. Even when she is being serious, she is still behaving like it is a joke. Even when she cares, she doesn't act like she does.

It's that inability to turn off the comedy when it's inappropriate that I can't stand. I've known people like that, and they are some of the most insufferable people to be around.

She's also a child. I am almost certain her character will have changed immensely by arc 2.

Edited October 27, 2025 by Clarkmon22
SPAG

[TacoBellChoutaMeal]

Lift is my least favorite of the “Brandon’s funny Character” characters. I actually do like Wayne, even though he is very decisive, and everybody likes LightSong. Lopen is good too. But to paraphrase someone else on these forums (I forgot who) Lift is great when she has other people to play off of (like Dalinar in the few scenes they share together) but annoying when it’s only her and Windyl. I don’t hate Windyl. But he’s almost too serious to the point where he’s comically serious. Lift’s initial WoR interlude was a drag for me, and I was really frustrated when Brandon wrote that bit in where Windyl tries to explain what Investiture is and Lift keeps telling him to shut up. That felt like a “storm you, audience, squirm a little while longer under the weight of the secrets” thing. I dreaded having to listen through Edgedancer. But Lift really only got better for me as time went by. The Lift interlude in RoW sold me on the character. When she was finally actually vulnerable and not just the arrogant child I really started to come around to her. I’m looking forward to the Lift flashback sequences in book 6. 

[clowncarcrash]

I love her! She's fun. I do find it frustrating as TacoBellChoutameal said, when I wanna know information that she's not interested in and she isn't curious, lol. But yeah she adds a different tone to the series, it's fun seeing her contrast with everyone. Plus there's that mystery behind her and why certain parties are invested in her future. 

 

The idea of a girl with a peter pan complex becoming so intertwined with cultivation. I delight in the irony!