[OB] Little late but...thoughts, questions and issues

[ColonelMatt]

Ok, so new here but I finished the book last week but wanted to put down a few questions and thoughts as my other friends/family haven't read it yet and I need to share.

 

 

Loved the book and some of my highlights:

- Tefts entire arc was sublime.

- Parshmen being very ...human... and Kaladin + Moash connecting with them was excellent.

- Adolin and his blade setup to regain 'life' 

- Renarin finally coming into his own.

- The entirety of Dalinar's story. Warts and all!

- Odium being subtle.

- Jasnah being Jasnah, especially where she makes people cry at the beauty of her logic and reasoning was -amazing-

- Continual love for the Taravangian alternating intelligence scenes.

- Lopen and Rock. In particular Rock's emotional support. 

- Too many others to recall.

 

 

Parts I didn't like so much or things I would have liked done differently:

- The final scenes in the capitol where Elkohar died just seemed underwhelming to me. Kaladin forgets how to do anything other than sit and watch and cry. Moash comes out of nowhere to kill the king at exactly the right time. The parshman friends and his new city guard buddies conveniently face off. Felt like Sanderson wasn't coping with so many potential loose ends so he had a bunch of them all converge too conveniently. 

- Moash turning from 'why can't we all get along and live together' to 'ok I'll kill everyone' didn't feel fleshed out enough.

- Amaram turning into a gem monster seemed a bit.... off with the style up till then.

- Shallan's indecisiveness and uncertainty seemed to drag on a bit long. Could have done with a bit less time on her. 

- Trip through Shadesmar made it feel too 'normal' and safe from the dangers Jasnah talked about before. Hoped it would have been a bit more trippy/psychedelic or for them to have not gone there at all.

- Lift is a bit too childlike in my opinion. Breaks too much with the rest of the book when she's in the main scenes. Preferred her in the side stories in the other books.

- Would have loved more development on the whole 'parshmen are just like us' and more time spent trying to establish a diplomatic relation.

- Really wanted the person leading the defence of the capitol to be an unknown who just developed knights radiant powers rather than a crossover character. 

- Not much on the other knights radiant that accompanied... Taravangian? 

- Too many of the main characters are nobles/related somehow. I want more 'normal' people like Kaladin who are important. 

- Queen Fen started out with so much promise - uniting the common folk in Dalinars vision and then did little to nothing in the final battle. Was hoping she'd rally the people and be an inspirational commander in the thick of it.

- Needed to know more about Elkohars wife beyond half of his lines just being 'I need to save her' for her betrayal (even though it was obvious) to have any impact.

 

Some thoughts and questions:

- So Honour is a shard and he created the 10 Heralds and gave them power to fight the desolations, and the spren are mostly also from honour/cultivation. Does this mean that Odiums champions are a mirror of the Heralds and they represent various aspects of him? This fits with him being more than just hatred as his 'evil heralds' are gluttony, the thrill etc. So Passions fits.

- I think that Taravangian is actually playing Odoum. We know Odium isn't omniscient and at the end the section of the diagram he looks at makes me think this appearance of dealing with Odium is a ruse to get the better of him. It would be hilarious if Taravangian uses the deal to defeat Odium by 'conquering' everyone, thereby making everywhere his kingdom, or by accepting everyone as citizens of his kingdom. I cam just see a finale where Jasnah uses logic to argue Odium into submission.

- Am I right in thinking that parshmen can be sort of brought back by Odium. Might Eshoni be reborn?

 

 

Any thoughts? Reading the list it seems I picked up a lot of issues but most of them (besides the whole 'neat' ending to Elkohar et all) were not too much of an issue for me.

[IllNsickly]

I am on a relisten of The whole SA and really only have one issue.

Every time I hear the Surges and their respective granted abilities referred to as ‘Powers’ it is jarring and takes me out of the story for a few minutes.

It sounds Campy and... I dunno... It just bothers me. I really dislike how jars me out of the story, especially how often it is said.

[Bort]

1 hour ago, ColonelMatt said:

- The final scenes in the capitol where Elkohar died just seemed underwhelming to me. Kaladin forgets how to do anything other than sit and watch and cry. Moash comes out of nowhere to kill the king at exactly the right time. The parshman friends and his new city guard buddies conveniently face off. Felt like Sanderson wasn't coping with so many potential loose ends so he had a bunch of them all converge too conveniently. 

****************************************************************

- Would have loved more development on the whole 'parshmen are just like us' and more time spent trying to establish a diplomatic relation.

- Really wanted the person leading the defence of the capitol to be an unknown who just developed knights radiant powers rather than a crossover character. 

****************************************************************

- So Honour is a shard and he created the 10 Heralds and gave them power to fight the desolations, and the spren are mostly also from honour/cultivation. Does this mean that Odiums champions are a mirror of the Heralds and they represent various aspects of him? This fits with him being more than just hatred as his 'evil heralds' are gluttony, the thrill etc. So Passions fits.

****************************************************************

- Am I right in thinking that parshmen can be sort of brought back by Odium. Might Eshoni be reborn?

First of all, welcome to the Shard. It's always good to see a new face

I'd just like to comment on the points above.

-Elhokar's death - The mess leading up to it was a necessary part of Kaladin's storyline. Moash's storyline probably could have done with fleshing out a bit more, but I think it covered what it had to in order to set up that particular scene. The friendly Parshmen killing the friendly guards, and Moash killing the king, all at once, piled on top of each other, was what broke Kaladin for the rest of the book. I can see where you are coming from about it feeling a little rushed, but I think that was deliberate too, so as not to give Kaladin any chance to respond from one shock before getting the next.

I once asked Brandon if he wrote 'The Last Battle' (chapter in the final Wheel of Time book) deliberately to be the world's longest chapter, and his answer was 'yes,' because by the end of it, he wanted readers to be feeling the same emotions the characters would be. I think he was aiming to do the same here -*slap* these characters you were liking are now gone; *slap* and so are these ones; *slap* and this one; *slap* oh, and it was your friend who betrayed you, who you already had the chance to kill (and my prediction for the next book... *slap* Oh, and that traitor now has the same power set you do).

-Parshmen are just like us - I don't think we've seen the end of this. I think this is going to be a major thing in the next two books, especially the next one (Eshonai/Venli's story).

-Azure - I actually agree with you here. While it was nice to have all the greater Cosmere stuff in, the amount of screen time Azure, Wit, and Nightblood got made it feel a bit like it was more of a Cosmere book, rather than Stormlight Archives.

-10 Heralds - Maybe, maybe not. It's as good a theory as any right now. I've got this bare bones theory knocking around inside my head that the Unmade are fragments of the Heralds' souls, invested by Odium. We know there are ten Heralds, and nine Unmade, and that Taln, the Herald that held the Oathpact, alone, for 4,500 years, was never meant to be one of them. My current thinking is that Odium took something from the original nine Heralds, and used that to create the Unmade. And that's why they are called the Unmade - they are the unmade fragments of the Heralds' souls.

That's what I think anyways.

-Resurrecting Parshmen - I doubt we're going to be seeing Eshonai again, except in flashbacks. Or visions, or illusions, not in real life anyways. From what I understand about the Fused though, you are right when you say Odium has a way to bring them back. I think of it like a ghost, possessing a body to use as a host. The Fused are the souls (or something) of the original Listeners that followed Odium.