Your View May Differ

[ScarletSabre]

So, I thought I'd make a place for people to discuss things (characters, settings, plot points etc) that many people like, but for one reason or another, they find themselves in the opposite, or less enthusiastic camp. Not exactly a hate thread, more a place to discuss our points of view and dissect some elements of Brandon's writing.

So, come one, come all! Did you find Adolin annoying but enjoy Renarin's earnestness? Did you find Vasher too much of a grump or think Raoden shouldn't have survived his time in Elantris for one reason or another? Did you hate Dockson for his old resentments, or.... somehow.... FAIL to be charmed by Kelsier? There'll be no judgement here! Well, unless you somehow didn't find Kelsier charming. C'mon, the man's as charming as Tony Stark.

I'll start things off by saying that I personally prefer the ending to Words of Radience where Kaladin killed Szeth himself with his spear, rather than letting the storm take him.

I understand that Kaladin's arc is all about discovering that not all Lighteyes are without Honour and learning to trust again, and take the best of the reality of being a soldier and the optimism, the desire to help, of being a surgeon..... But I personally believe that Lirin was wrong when he told Kaladin that you can't kill to protect.

You absolutely can; if someone puts a knife to the neck of someone I love or attempts to kill them in any way... I will kill them without a second thought. (Of course, I do have the mindset of over a decade of training in martial arts, and kill or be killed is an easy choice when it's the only one) Regrets, perhaps, but it's a brutal truth, if a lion is attacking your child, your mother, your boyfriend, your best friend, and you have a spear or a gun, and only a moment to react, to stop it, are you killing to protect? (And would you treat it any differently if it happens to be a female? Of course that's a whole 'nother topic for a whole 'nother thread...)

Anyway, I felt disappointed with the revision, because it seems to me kind of like Kaladin is leaving a threat alive with his choice, one that's actively broken, but insane and still dangerous. If Szeth somehow survived and went on to kill someone, and Kaladin found out (And let's face it, with everyone's favourite talking, evil destroyin' sword in his hand, SOMEONE'S gonna die soon...), he's going to blame himself for the death, even moreso than he already would for taking too much responsibility and blame upon himself. I don't have the book in front of me at the moment, so I don't remember the exact wording of what happened, but if Kaladin had tried to bring Szeth to Alethi justice by crippling him and then bringing him before the king, trying to pull him out of the storm, that would have been one thing... but it kind of felt like the Batman Begins ending, of Kaladin no longer wanting to kill, but "not having to save him", which is fair enough, but it didn't feel like an organic or foreshadowed moment for his character development at that point for me.

So, thoughts? Hopefully people don't mind my little rant and want to discuss these things. ^^;

[VirtuousTraveller]

I like the idea of Wayne's character, I really do, but I feel like his character is forced a bit much (especially in SoS).  I thought SoS was the weakest of all of Brandon's books so far (especially in the Mistborn series), and Wayne's "overly silly" comments just didn't click with me, especially as I listened to the words read aloud via Audible recently.  I think his POV in that book in particular lacked the depth he had in the other two era 1.5 books, which then pulled his whole character down to me.

I know Brandon has spoken about SoS being a challenge when he wrote it, and I really felt the same way reading it.  It did the job of moving the story along, but the entire book felt slow and forced - you learn the new plot line information toward the end, and then it's over.

FORTUNATELY BoM and MB:SH were an incredible comeback! =)

[StormingTexan]

 

6 hours ago, Rawrbert said:

I'll start things off by saying that I personally prefer the ending to Words of Radience where Kaladin killed Szeth himself with his spear, rather than letting the storm take him.

Completely agree with this. Broke my heart a little when it was changed. 

 

[maxal]

So a threat made for ranting??? So beware, the following will be a rant.

I do not find Renarin's character endearing. I consider that while he has been dealt a bad number with his disability and his handicap, he still retained enough agency to do something with his life other than whine over not being able to be a soldier. I do not find him threatening to jump into the chasm heartbreaking but manipulative, unconsciously so, but manipulative nonetheless as he did end up tricking his father into giving him a Shardplate. While I don't think it was voluntary, this was the end result and it unnerves me because I don't feel Renarin has proven he had the perseverance to work out long enough to actually deserve one. I also feel Renarin spent a lifetime victimizing himself instead of taking control over the things he could control and was, somewhat, rewarded by a Nahel bond which often feels wrong (I feel as if he was given magic in order to solve his problems as opposed to solving them himself). Still, I do feel it was the best choice for his character, but I dislike how it is currently brought up. Hopefully, this issue will be settled with future books.

I do find Wayne's character unnerving which saddens me because I do like him. I just cannot take the silliness, the pointless scenes where he jumps from one thing to the other without any cohesive plan, the lack of introspection and the feeling he basically has no agency which isn't true. He does, but he comes across as someone which jumps goes with the flow, not someone who tries to steer to go somewhere. Still, I think he has the most interesting back story: I just wish Brandon would drop the silly, the attempt at being funny, the jokes, the pointless scenes and turn Wayne into a more serious character, but I guess it would defy his whole purpose.

I'll probably think of others. I love ranting 

[Eccentric Hero]

2 hours ago, maxal said:

So a threat made for ranting??? So beware, the following will be a rant.

I do not find Renarin's character endearing. I consider that while he has been dealt a bad number with his disability and his handicap, he still retained enough agency to do something with his life other than whine over not being able to be a soldier. I do not find him threatening to jump into the chasm heartbreaking but manipulative, unconsciously so, but manipulative nonetheless as he did end up tricking his father into giving him a Shardplate. While I don't think it was voluntary, this was the end result and it unnerves me because I don't feel Renarin has proven he had the perseverance to work out long enough to actually deserve one. I also feel Renarin spent a lifetime victimizing himself instead of taking control over the things he could control and was, somewhat, rewarded by a Nahel bond which often feels wrong (I feel as if he was given magic in order to solve his problems as opposed to solving them himself). Still, I do feel it was the best choice for his character, but I dislike how it is currently brought up. Hopefully, this issue will be settled with future books.

I do find Wayne's character unnerving which saddens me because I do like him. I just cannot take the silliness, the pointless scenes where he jumps from one thing to the other without any cohesive plan, the lack of introspection and the feeling he basically has no agency which isn't true. He does, but he comes across as someone which jumps goes with the flow, not someone who tries to steer to go somewhere. Still, I think he has the most interesting back story: I just wish Brandon would drop the silly, the attempt at being funny, the jokes, the pointless scenes and turn Wayne into a more serious character, but I guess it would defy his whole purpose.

I'll probably think of others. I love ranting 

I actually like Renarin more than Adolin and he used to be one of my fave chars, but I must agree on the points you raise. Renarin is 19 at the start of the story. By then, he should have thought about what he can do in life. He knows that he wants to be a warrior, but he has no experience or training. He should have thought about how he could turn himself from a NEET to a person with a Calling and who lives up to the honor of his lineage. If it weren't for his spren, he would have been a failure. I'll admit that he is smart and nice, but a smart kid would probably have realized that he was messing up his life. I still like him more than both Adolin and Shallan.

Wayne's scatterbrainness is probably a side effect of the special power he gets as a twinborn. The special power he gets is probably his talent at acting. His talent is probably caused by less Identity. Oh god, I created functions within functions. Now, you must use chain rule to find the derivative. Unfortunately, most of this is not quantifiable, so good luck.

 

I really liked Vasher. He thanks his strawmen. That's a lot of empathy. When he has to save the world by changing people's minds, he doesn't go to rich Idrians; he goes to the poor people because he wasn't that good with people to form connection with big people.

Edited October 8, 2016 by Eccentric Hero

[maxal]

59 minutes ago, Eccentric Hero said:

I actually like Renarin more than Adolin and he used to be one of my fave chars, but I must agree on the points you raise. Renarin is 19 at the start of the story. By then, he should have thought about what he can do in life. He knows that he wants to be a warrior, but he has no experience or training. He should have thought about how he could turn himself from a NEET to a person with a Calling and who lives up to the honor of his lineage. If it weren't for his spren, he would have been a failure. I'll admit that he is smart and nice, but a smart kid would probably have realized that he was messing up his life. I still like him more than both Adolin and Shallan.

Wayne's scatterbrainness is probably a side effect of the special power he gets as a twinborn. The special power he gets is probably his talent at acting. His talent is probably caused by less Identity. Oh god, I created functions within functions. Now, you must use chain rule to find the derivative. Unfortunately, most of this is not quantifiable, so good luck.

 

I really liked Vasher. He thanks his strawmen. That's a lot of empathy. When he has to save the world by changing people's minds, he doesn't go to rich Idrians; he goes to the poor people because he wasn't that good with people to form connection with big people.

I need to point out, it isn't I dislike Renarin: I even preferred him to Adolin at some point in WoK. I however feel the "idea of Renarin" as he was presented in WoK fell apart in WoR when it turned out he has presumably been waiting his whole life for something to change without expecting he might have to make concessions and/or work hard to achieve his goals. The fact he never trained, at all, isn't well explained enough to be plausible. Sure he can't be a soldier, but why can't he learn how to use a sword and why can't he do any physical training? Why is it, if a soldier is what he absolutely wants, has he not physically trained, if not with a sword, at least with his body? It just seems as if he hasn't try to find any solution for his problems other than resign himself to feeling useless. From my reader's perspective, he hasn't try and it makes him less endearing to me and hard to relate to. It isn't he isn't smart nor nice nor generous nor brave, but he is a victim. He sees himself as one and he uses it as an excuse to justify his feelings of uselessness. I have always had a hard time with people refusing to seek a solution: there always is a solution. It may not be the solution you want, but you always retain some agency. Renarin has refused to use his, so it has never sit well with me. As I said, hopefully, the "idea of Renarin" will end up a good one, ultimately and these points will be better explained. I however prefer hard-working solution seeking Adolin: who never gives up and, when faced with a failure, works even harder.

Wayne scatterbrainness might have an explanation, but it doesn't help his character. As I said, I love the "idea of Wayne", I dislike how he was executed.

[Elenion]

I too have a bit of a dislike for Renarin's character at the moment. (WoR spoilers)

Spoiler

My main beef with Renarin is that he doesn't seem to have gained his powers from him causing a turning point in his own life, as the others have. Kaladin committed to protecting others, even if there was no chance of survival for him. Shallan faced her past and reconciled her current self with what she was. But Renarin? As Maxal says, he retains his victim complex, something that if I was writing I'd make him overcome before giving him his powers.

If I was Brandon Sanderson (which I most definitely am not), here's what I'd make Renarin's arc like:

• Renarin grows up in the shadow of Dalinar and Adolin, and wants to be like them
• However, Renarin's lack of skill in the dueling arena makes it difficult for him to accept himself
• Renarin dedicates himself to training, but even after long practice sessions he doesn't seem to be learning
• Renarin feels broken and useless, unable to win the family respect
• An event happens that forces Renarin to take on another task, possibly stratigizing for battle
• Renarin discovers an innate talent for this task
• Renarin finally accepts that he'll never be the warriors that his brother and father are, but he dedicates himself to being equally-useful to his house and army
• Renarin discovers his Surgebinding powers

[Toaster Retribution]

I dont like Syl much. She is kind of irritating sometimes, and appears too childish for my taste. 

I also find Kaladin annoying. I understand that his character is about saving, and I like the fact that he grew up as a surgeon, and has a hard time letting go. But he has gone a bit too far with saving the day pretty much all the time (there are some exceptions, but mainly, he is the hero of everything). It feels a bit like Charizard in the Pokemon Anime, who, in periods, always gets the spotlight (I DONT like Charizard). So if Kaladin started to be a bit more sidelined sometimes, so that Dalinar, Adolin etc, could do stuff as well, my main issue with his character would be solved.

Also, as stated in another thread, I like Amaram a lot.

[maxal]

4 hours ago, Elenion said:

I too have a bit of a dislike for Renarin's character at the moment. (WoR spoilers)

  Hide contents

My main beef with Renarin is that he doesn't seem to have gained his powers from him causing a turning point in his own life, as the others have. Kaladin committed to protecting others, even if there was no chance of survival for him. Shallan faced her past and reconciled her current self with what she was. But Renarin? As Maxal says, he retains his victim complex, something that if I was writing I'd make him overcome before giving him his powers.

If I was Brandon Sanderson (which I most definitely am not), here's what I'd make Renarin's arc like:

• Renarin grows up in the shadow of Dalinar and Adolin, and wants to be like them
• However, Renarin's lack of skill in the dueling arena makes it difficult for him to accept himself
• Renarin dedicates himself to training, but even after long practice sessions he doesn't seem to be learning
• Renarin feels broken and useless, unable to win the family respect
• An event happens that forces Renarin to take on another task, possibly stratigizing for battle
• Renarin discovers an innate talent for this task
• Renarin finally accepts that he'll never be the warriors that his brother and father are, but he dedicates himself to being equally-useful to his house and army
• Renarin discovers his Surgebinding powers

I agree about your main beef: it does reflect my own. We, the readers, aren't given a strong enough rational to understand why Renarin was chosen to be a Radiant. Sure, we can extrapolate, but the character has been presented as so inactive, so passive the pill is hard to swallow. I do understand the reason we weren't given more likely is tied to the fact we weren't supposed to guess early on Renarin had a spren: his reveal has to come out of nowhere. I sincerely believe, in the overall plan, it works better if this is how it happens. The downside is we, the readers, are left with a character having not done anything we could tie to any of the orders, anything outstanding, out of normal, anything to set himself apart. It thus feels as if he hasn't deserve his powers and worst, because he has a disability, it also feels as if they are given to him because of it, because of something he cannot control whereas most of us feel the Nahel bond should only come to those who choose to act in the face of adversity.

All this to say, I understand why he was presented the way he was, but I do hope we are given a stronger rational going into the next book as to why he was chosen, what has he done we haven't seen? Admittedly, the character would have worked better if we had seen him actually fail, if we had witness people laugh of him, if we had gotten a stronger sense as to why it is so terrible not being able to be a soldier. As Brandon put in into another WoB, not being a soldier might be terrible thing, but we the readers aren't feeling it because we have been given too many example of high ranked individuals having no affinity for battle.

3 hours ago, Chull #445 said:

I dont like Syl much. She is kind of irritating sometimes, and appears too childish for my taste. 

I also find Kaladin annoying. I understand that his character is about saving, and I like the fact that he grew up as a surgeon, and has a hard time letting go. But he has gone a bit too far with saving the day pretty much all the time (there are some exceptions, but mainly, he is the hero of everything). It feels a bit like Charizard in the Pokemon Anime, who, in periods, always gets the spotlight (I DONT like Charizard). So if Kaladin started to be a bit more sidelined sometimes, so that Dalinar, Adolin etc, could do stuff as well, my main issue with his character would be solved.

Also, as stated in another thread, I like Amaram a lot.

I share your view of Kaladin: he is too much the hero, he saves the day too often which ends up in removing drama and emotions from his fights as we all know he is going to win with a fancy move. He is over-used. He is over-developed. Everyone else is under-developed except for Shallan, but Shallan can't carry on action scenes. I too wish for Adolin and Dalinar to step up in order to take up the climaxes without having Kaladin jump in at the last moment to turn the tide. I think it was Legendarium which illustrated one of the reasons I love Adolin so much: "Each time this guy gets into a duel or a fight, I get oh no he is going to die...". So there. With Adolin, there is drama, fear while with Kaldin, because he is the hero, there is none. Then again, if Adolin becomes a hero, he'll suffer the same fate, so huh... food for thought.

[Toaster Retribution]

1 hour ago, maxal said:

I agree about your main beef: it does reflect my own. We, the readers, aren't given a strong enough rational to understand why Renarin was chosen to be a Radiant. Sure, we can extrapolate, but the character has been presented as so inactive, so passive the pill is hard to swallow. I do understand the reason we weren't given more likely is tied to the fact we weren't supposed to guess early on Renarin had a spren: his reveal has to come out of nowhere. I sincerely believe, in the overall plan, it works better if this is how it happens. The downside is we, the readers, are left with a character having not done anything we could tie to any of the orders, anything outstanding, out of normal, anything to set himself apart. It thus feels as if he hasn't deserve his powers and worst, because he has a disability, it also feels as if they are given to him because of it, because of something he cannot control whereas most of us feel the Nahel bond should only come to those who choose to act in the face of adversity.

All this to say, I understand why he was presented the way he was, but I do hope we are given a stronger rational going into the next book as to why he was chosen, what has he done we haven't seen? Admittedly, the character would have worked better if we had seen him actually fail, if we had witness people laugh of him, if we had gotten a stronger sense as to why it is so terrible not being able to be a soldier. As Brandon put in into another WoB, not being a soldier might be terrible thing, but we the readers aren't feeling it because we have been given too many example of high ranked individuals having no affinity for battle.

I share your view of Kaladin: he is too much the hero, he saves the day too often which ends up in removing drama and emotions from his fights as we all know he is going to win with a fancy move. He is over-used. He is over-developed. Everyone else is under-developed except for Shallan, but Shallan can't carry on action scenes. I too wish for Adolin and Dalinar to step up in order to take up the climaxes without having Kaladin jump in at the last moment to turn the tide. I think it was Legendarium which illustrated one of the reasons I love Adolin so much: "Each time this guy gets into a duel or a fight, I get oh no he is going to die...". So there. With Adolin, there is drama, fear while with Kaldin, because he is the hero, there is none. Then again, if Adolin becomes a hero, he'll suffer the same fate, so huh... food for thought.

The trick is too vary who gets to save the day. Sometimes Kaladin can do it, sometimes Dalinar, sometimes Adolin, or someone else. That way, no one is overused and we wont know for a fact that a certain character will win.

Or Brandon could pull a GRRM and kill Kaladin unexpectedly during a fight. 

[maxal]

1 hour ago, Chull #445 said:

The trick is too vary who gets to save the day. Sometimes Kaladin can do it, sometimes Dalinar, sometimes Adolin, or someone else. That way, no one is overused and we wont know for a fact that a certain character will win.

Or Brandon could pull a GRRM and kill Kaladin unexpectedly during a fight. 

I agree. Epic fantasy works better with a larger cast: I have yet to see if Brandon can pull it off. He does have the tendency to focus on one character to the expense of others. I has been one of the reasons I had wanted Adolin to inherit a larger more important story arc: we can't have Kaladin keep on carrying all of the action for the next three books. In the long run, I do feel it will impact the story negatively.

I doubt Brandon will kill Kaladin... Inklings I have is he survives and has an on-going arc within the second half: Brandon rarely kills his favorite characters and when he does, he usually brings them back.

[Toaster Retribution]

34 minutes ago, maxal said:

I agree. Epic fantasy works better with a larger cast: I have yet to see if Brandon can pull it off. He does have the tendency to focus on one character to the expense of others. I has been one of the reasons I had wanted Adolin to inherit a larger more important story arc: we can't have Kaladin keep on carrying all of the action for the next three books. In the long run, I do feel it will impact the story negatively.

I doubt Brandon will kill Kaladin... Inklings I have is he survives and has an on-going arc within the second half: Brandon rarely kills his favorite characters and when he does, he usually brings them back.

Yeah, Brandon tends to focus on a smaller cast. While I hope he expands so that characters like Adolin, Amaram, Elhokar and others can get full arcs, there is a danger in going to big, like WoT and ASoIaF has proven. 

He killed a bunch of people in Mistborn who he said he liked, and he also killed a major character in Warbreaker. All of these without revival. I think Kaladin may die, but it will be during a grand climax in which he makes a huge sacrifice and does something important. 

[maxal]

10 minutes ago, Chull #445 said:

Yeah, Brandon tends to focus on a smaller cast. While I hope he expands so that characters like Adolin, Amaram, Elhokar and others can get full arcs, there is a danger in going to big, like WoT and ASoIaF has proven. 

He killed a bunch of people in Mistborn who he said he liked, and he also killed a major character in Warbreaker. All of these without revival. I think Kaladin may die, but it will be during a grand climax in which he makes a huge sacrifice and does something important. 

We are leagues and leagues away from WoT in terms of cast size... WoT had a steady cast of 6 main protagonists which steadily increased to 9 or 10 depending on which book you are reading. Characters such as Min did have an ongoing arc, a narrative viewpoint and such without being one of the 6. 

Currently, SA has 4 regular main narrative characters: two of them clearly being the main protagonists and one of them clearly being a supporting character ranking below Min in terms of importance to the story. Seriously, there is a lot of room to add more major viewpoint characters within SA without dragging the story down... The problem, as I see it, is Brandon tends to focus a lot on a given character when he writes him/her and he doesn't vary his viewpoints very often. In other words, each time Kaladin walks in a scene, you have his POV while Jordan would have used Mat or someone else at times whenever Rand was around.

So all in all, I do think there is plenty of room in those 450K words to expand more on characters such as Adolin, Amaram and Elhokar while keeping tag on Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar. Adolin earning a 50-60K words count POV, as per my personal wishes wouldn't drag the story down for other characters: Kaladin doesn't have to have 150K in each book... He could work out with only 80K. Amaram and Elhokar could be given 15K each and it still would leave a lot of room for other characters. I mean, there is room, but it means spending a bit less time with Kaladin (and also Shallan) and I don't know if the author is willing to do this.

He killed people he liked in Mistborn, but he also brought one back... Still, I am rather confident Kaladin does not die, especially not in a heroic sacrifice: it would ruin the character if he were to do so. The heroic sacrifice works better with other characters such as Szeth, Eshonai or even Elhokar, IMHO.

[Toaster Retribution]

59 minutes ago, maxal said:

We are leagues and leagues away from WoT in terms of cast size... WoT had a steady cast of 6 main protagonists which steadily increased to 9 or 10 depending on which book you are reading. Characters such as Min did have an ongoing arc, a narrative viewpoint and such without being one of the 6. 

Currently, SA has 4 regular main narrative characters: two of them clearly being the main protagonists and one of them clearly being a supporting character ranking below Min in terms of importance to the story. Seriously, there is a lot of room to add more major viewpoint characters within SA without dragging the story down... The problem, as I see it, is Brandon tends to focus a lot on a given character when he writes him/her and he doesn't vary his viewpoints very often. In other words, each time Kaladin walks in a scene, you have his POV while Jordan would have used Mat or someone else at times whenever Rand was around.

So all in all, I do think there is plenty of room in those 450K words to expand more on characters such as Adolin, Amaram and Elhokar while keeping tag on Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar. Adolin earning a 50-60K words count POV, as per my personal wishes wouldn't drag the story down for other characters: Kaladin doesn't have to have 150K in each book... He could work out with only 80K. Amaram and Elhokar could be given 15K each and it still would leave a lot of room for other characters. I mean, there is room, but it means spending a bit less time with Kaladin (and also Shallan) and I don't know if the author is willing to do this.

He killed people he liked in Mistborn, but he also brought one back... Still, I am rather confident Kaladin does not die, especially not in a heroic sacrifice: it would ruin the character if he were to do so. The heroic sacrifice works better with other characters such as Szeth, Eshonai or even Elhokar, IMHO.

You are very correct in this. What I meant was not that Adolin, Amaram and Elhokar, or someone else for that matter, could not have an entire arc. I just said that going too big is dangerous. But there are room for a wider focus. And I think that we will see it widen a bit as the story progresses. In the next book, we will have POV from Kaladin and Szeth, both out on their own journeys, plus Dalinar, Shallan and Adolin in Urithiru. We may get more branching plot lines, different POVs and things going on at different locations as the story develops. After all, in the first two WoT books there were pretty few major POVs. Rand, Perrin, Egwene and Nynaeve were the major ones, with occasional POVs from other characters, such as Min or Moiraine. 

Why do you feel a heroic sacrifice would ruin Kaladins character. After all, he is all about protection. 

 

 SPOILERS FOR MISTBORN:

Spoiler

As far as death is concerned, Elend and Vin, who he stated were his favroites, along with Sazed, are dead. Kelsier did not rank as high for him, at least not while he wrote the annotations for The Final Empire (which was a while ago). 

 

Edited October 8, 2016 by Chull #445

[Quiver]

I'm sort of disappointed by the Stormlight Archive. 

Roshar is a fascinating world. I love the setting, the cultures, the creatures and the peoples. I love Rysn's chapters because she's been our main viewpoint to see the world.

But the narrative itself feels very 'safe', very traditional High Fantasy. After years of having the genre deconstructed by the likes of Game of Thrones, that's kind of refreshing...

... But I don't think the narrative is strong enough. Few of the characters connect with me as strongly as Vin did. The story isn't as subversive as Warbreaker (delightful and twisted) take on the Sword and Sorcery genre. The Stormlight Archive feels more like a sequel to Elantris than anything else.

And I think a portion of that does apply to Kaladin, as has been pointed pit above. His depression and racism are interesting, but on the whole, he feels like a very "traditional" hero figure to me.

[maxal]

2 hours ago, Chull #445 said:

You are very correct in this. What I meant was not that Adolin, Amaram and Elhokar, or someone else for that matter, could not have an entire arc. I just said that going too big is dangerous. But there are room for a wider focus. And I think that we will see it widen a bit as the story progresses. In the next book, we will have POV from Kaladin and Szeth, both out on their own journeys, plus Dalinar, Shallan and Adolin in Urithiru. We may get more branching plot lines, different POVs and things going on at different locations as the story develops. After all, in the first two WoT books there were pretty few major POVs. Rand, Perrin, Egwene and Nynaeve were the major ones, with occasional POVs from other characters, such as Min or Moiraine. 

Why do you feel a heroic sacrifice would ruin Kaladins character. After all, he is all about protection. 

 

 SPOILERS FOR MISTBORN:

  Reveal hidden contents

As far as death is concerned, Elend and Vin, who he stated were his favroites, along with Sazed, are dead. Kelsier did not rank as high for him, at least not while he wrote the annotations for The Final Empire (which was a while ago). 

 

Going too big is too dangerous and Brandon himself stated how worried he was about it. However, by being too afraid of it, I do think he has pushed the pendulum too far down the other opposite. He also once explained how he thought WoK Prime didn't work out primarily because he had too many focus points namely Kaladin, Dalinar, Jasnah, Taln and Renarin. I haven't read the story, but one of the reason it perhaps didn't work out was because all of these characters were evolving on their own and not in groups. Jordan could afford many leads because they often spend entire books being grouped together in groups of two or three. In WoK Prime, I suspect Kaladin had his own story which involved himself, Dalinar had his own story which involved himself, Renarin is a deeply introspective character so while he isn't technically on his own, his POV likely centered on him thinking about himself (as I fear it will end being in the real SA), Jasnah had her own story and Taln his. The author said it was too much and if it went down as I suspect it did, then I have to agree. In order to have more leads, you need to make your story converge and have your characters interact one with the other.

Still there is room to give more fulfilling arcs to other characters than Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar while keeping tabs on Eshonai and Szeth.

Why do I feel it would ruin Kaladin's character? Because he wouldn't have learned anything if he were to do so. Currently, he has a hero complex: he wants to save everyone he deems worthy, he wants to do it with as much fanfare as possible and he does believe he may need to die for this to happen. If he were to actually do it, then he would not have progressed. Kaladin's duties are not to die to protect, but to lead them towards acquiring the skills to protect themselves which is exactly what he has done with Bridge 4. Hence, the heroic sacrifice would make Kaladin's character completely pointless. I would however give a strong significance to characters such as Szeth or Elhokar. In similar ways, if Adolin were to trust himself onto an enemy blade to protect his father and die for it, then it would yield the same result.

About Mistborn, really? I never read the annotations, but I thought Kelsier was Brandon's favorite. Sorry if I was mistaken, I thus remove what I have said.

1 hour ago, Quiver said:

I'm sort of disappointed by the Stormlight Archive. 

Roshar is a fascinating world. I love the setting, the cultures, the creatures and the peoples. I love Rysn's chapters because she's been our main viewpoint to see the world.

But the narrative itself feels very 'safe', very traditional High Fantasy. After years of having the genre deconstructed by the likes of Game of Thrones, that's kind of refreshing...

... But I don't think the narrative is strong enough. Few of the characters connect with me as strongly as Vin did. The story isn't as subversive as Warbreaker (delightful and twisted) take on the Sword and Sorcery genre. The Stormlight Archive feels more like a sequel to Elantris than anything else.

And I think a portion of that does apply to Kaladin, as has been pointed pit above. His depression and racism are interesting, but on the whole, he feels like a very "traditional" hero figure to me.

SA is only two books in and I do believe the author has several elements in place to steer the story away from the predictable paths of your average heroes journey focusing on an under-dog protagonist borderlining on depressive. In other words, while the initial layout of SA indeed is traditional, the future doesn't have to be. The authors has several less traditional avenues open to him. Will he go there? Well, I do hope he will.

As for not having found another character you would relate to as strongly as Vin, well, relating to a character on a personal level is very very rare. It isn't surprising you haven't find one in SA considering you found one in Mistborn.

[Edgedancer]

2 hours ago, Chull #445 said:

SPOILERS FOR MISTBORN:

  Hide contents

As far as death is concerned, Elend and Vin, who he stated were his favroites, along with Sazed, are dead. Kelsier did not rank as high for him, at least not while he wrote the annotations for The Final Empire (which was a while ago). 

 

Spoiler

Does Sazed count as dead? Appart from that you have to consider that those deaths were at the end of a series and even if they survived, Vin and Elend would not have been able to appear in another book, at most they would have affected the worldbuilding for the Alloy era. Thus their deaths matters less than that of a character that would see the plot of another book. The "plot armor" (whether it's noticable or not) has no effect anymore because there isn't any more plot they need to be protected for.

That is not to say that I don't care about them dying or anything like that, not do I mean to imply that handling character death this way is bad, still killing a character in their last book of their series is significantly different from killing them in the middle, so assuming that Kalading could survive until the end of Stormlight 10, then the death of Vin and Elend in no point towards Brandon being willing to kill Kaladin before book 10. He might but there's still nothing in those deaths indicating he would.

For my own grievances, I noticed that Brandon is lately heavily relying on a certain plot twist, not naming any books specifically for that would spoil them by association but just assume spoilers for everything to come.

Spoiler

Calamity, SoS, BoM and the Dark Talent all have a new person join the team (not necessarily on good terms nor all that important but working with them nonetheless) only for them to turn out to have been the main antagonist of the book/series. He did something similair in Elantris and Warbreaker but not only was it less noticable because they were the first book in the series and so not the obvious new guy but those books also had longer cooldowns between them. Now it came to the point that I was roling my eyes at the end of the Dark Talent because guess what same twist again.

And then there's Shards, specifically in the Mistborn books. When most people see soft magic they think of Deus Ex Machina, I have the opposite problem with the Shards here, namely that I can see rather simple solutions for their problems and yet they don't take them with no explanation on why they don't. This leads to me doubting the competence of these eldritch beings rather heavily. Ironically, this only gets worse as I learn more about their capabilities.

[Elenion]

1 hour ago, maxal said:

As for not having found another character you would relate to as strongly as Vin, well, relating to a character on a personal level is very very rare. It isn't surprising you haven't find one in SA considering you found one in Mistborn.

For me it was Kelsier in Mistborn. Kaladin fills the gap a little, but I still haven't connected with him in that same way.

[+Slowswift]

I find the stick to be annoying and everybody's obsession with it even more so.

Sorry.

More writing-wise, while I like all of Brandon's fantasy, I almost prefer his science fiction. Or, at least I wish he'd write more of it. I don't know how unpopular that opinion is, or even if it is at all, but I get a definite sense that it's not very common one.  

[Toaster Retribution]

6 hours ago, Slowswift said:

I find the stick to be annoying and everybody's obsession with it even more so.

Sorry.

More writing-wise, while I like all of Brandon's fantasy, I almost prefer his science fiction. Or, at least I wish he'd write more of it. I don't know how unpopular that opinion is, or even if it is at all, but I get a definite sense that it's not very common one.  

While I dont find Stick annoying, I do feel that the obsession goes overboard sometimes, so, upvote for that.

I think genre may depend much about what you prefer as a person. I love epic fantasy, and as such, I am happy when Brandon does that, although I would be happy to read sci-fi as well.

[maxal]

6 hours ago, Chull #445 said:

While I dont find Stick annoying, I do feel that the obsession goes overboard sometimes, so, upvote for that.

I think genre may depend much about what you prefer as a person. I love epic fantasy, and as such, I am happy when Brandon does that, although I would be happy to read sci-fi as well.

 I second. I don't get the obsession for the stick: it is disproportionate and it has stopped being funny a long time ago.

I also prefer epic fantasy to science fiction, so this one may simply call to personal preference. This being said, I never Brandon's more sci-fi stuff.

[Elenion]

The obsession with the stick is rather amusing but occasionally overkill, but I think that the Lopen obsession bugs me more.

[maxal]

34 minutes ago, Elenion said:

The obsession with the stick is rather amusing but occasionally overkill, but I think that the Lopen obsession bugs me more.

I second. The stick and Lopen are two comical elements within the story which has caused some high level of obsession among a significant proportion of the fanbase. Both alternatively annoy me when they get quoted over and over again as a never-ending joke which has overgrown its purpose.

[Cartographer7]

I've never really liked Spook. It seems like there's a bunch of people who are big fans of his, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be, but I've never understood his appeal. I couldn't bring myself to care about his relatively stock self esteem issues, especially when compared to what Vin, Sazed, and Elend had going on. And his "dialect" drove me nuts. I was so glad when he stopped using it.