[OB] The Weirdness of Oathbringer

[Stormfather-in-Law]

21 hours ago, Llarimar said:

Not sure how serious you're being about the Lumanor chapter, Stormfather-in-Law - it was good, I suppose, but it didn't stand out nearly as much to me.  I definitley agree with Toaster Retribution, however, that Amaram could have used viewpoint chapters, and that there were way too many viewpoint chapters for random characters, including Bridge 4.  The number of viewpoint characters kind of becomes ridiculous and exhausting, especially during the Battle of Thaylen City, for example.

Don't disagree with your desire for those other pieces, but I was quite serious. I loved that chapter. Course, it doesn't have to ring your bell like it did mine - that ends up being the point of many of these threads, after all.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Dang it, I wrote this really long post and it all got deleted. I’ll try to rewrite it. 

Overall, I agree with the OP’s point. If Brandon purposely left out a character after having them talk about feeling left out, who’s to say he couldn’t have done something similar with several plotlines in OB?

Was I surprised by how the Sadeas murder/army turning plotline played out? Yes. Did it disappoint my expectations? Yes. Was it done poorly? No, I don’t think so. The in-world explanation for the lack of consequences from Sadeas’s murder makes sense to me. They put Adolin, the person who killed him, as the head of investigation to find Sadeas’s killer. Even if only subconsciously, Adolin definitely hindered the investigation. As the Desolation got worse throughout the story, the characters were no longer worried about something as small as Sadeas’s death (and they were honestly glad he was dead). They simply didn’t have the time nor the resources to seriously continue an investigation which they had no leads on and didn’t really care about. This absolutely infuriated Sadeas’s army, and Brandon constantly showed throughout the book how they were getting angrier and angrier because of this. There’s not much more else Brandon could’ve done to foreshadow the army turning because 1) it would’ve given it away and taken away the shock factor during the climax and 2) the turn happened directly because of Odium’s influence, which is hard to foreshadow. 

As for Amaram’s turning, I will admit that it was shocking, jarring, and unexpected. Which was the storming point. Brandon could’ve given Amaram viewpoints earlier to show how he was beginning to turn, but that would’ve ruined the shock factor of his betrayal at the end. 

For both of these factors, there importance in the book was greatly downplayed because, in the face of a Desolation, they don’t matter as much. The old enemies (Sadeas and Amaram) don’t really matter anymore. The true conflict is against Odium. It makes perfect sense to me why these conflicts didn’t get much spotlight-they didn’t need it. 

As for the issue of the meandering nature of the Shadesmar sequence and the end of the book, I just don’t see it. 

The Shadesmar sequence was my favorite part of the book, besides the overarching Dalinar storyline. It was so much fun getting to explore Shadesmar, getting to meet the Spren, and seeing Kaladin struggle with realizing he can’t save everyone. Without that sequence, you don’t get any of that progression from him, you don’t get Adolin getting close to Maya, you don’t get to learn Syl’s backstory, and you don’t get to see that glimpse into the world of Spren politics. 

As for the climax of the book, I felt it was pretty intense. I felt that the characters were in serious trouble-especially when Dalinar almost turned. Could Brandon have cut back on the flashbacks? Maybe (looking at you, Yanagawn). But I think that constant switching between viewpoints helps to create the frantic, frightening nature of that final battle. 

Overall, Oathbringer was not the book I expected. It was not the book I wanted. It was the book we needed. If you tried to change anything in it, the book would not work in my opinion.

[Willshaping Crasher]

I am surprised by some people's reactions to the Sadeas murder storyline.  We, as the reader, get to read the first hand accounts from Adolin, Shallan, Dalinar, etc., however, the average "in world person" would not.  Sadeas was murdered, another noble was murdered in much the same way.........Another murder, and another........Shallan and bridge 4 chase off an unmade!(Re-Shephir)  Suddenly the murders stop.  Why would the average person in world (who knows nothing of the story behind the scenes) not cheer Adolin, Shallan, and bridge 4 and move on?  Ialai is left without any possibility of popular support and Sadeas soldiers, whatever they believe, are now even further outcast for supporting leaders (at this point Ialai and Amaram) who look like fools given an Unmade has been discovered and chased off.  What am I missing in this plotline?

[agrabes]

Here are some of my own thoughts on what made Oathbringer feel weird to me.

Part 1 was great, it was a continuation of WoR and felt like part of the same story as the first two novels.   The ending was great as well, a classic Sanderson ending.  The middle parts in my view were not as good.  They almost felt like a different story entirely from WoK, WoR, and Part 1 of OB.  I think the main reason I felt that way was that I didn't like Shallan's arc and how it impacted the main thrust of the story.  If you compare and contrast Shallan's OB arc with Kalladin's OB arc I think you'll see my point:

Kalladin - Has done a lot and slain a few of his personal demons by the end of WoR and by early OB he seems to be in a pretty good place.  Then, he gets hit in the face with new, more difficult problems and fails to rise to the occasion.  He picks himself back up after his failure and keeps going, learning a few things along the way.  This to me was satisfying, I enjoyed Kalladin's OB arc.

Shallan - Has also done a lot in the first two books and is seemingly on a continual upward path at the end of WoR.  Early in OB, you start to see a few cracks form around the edges and through the middle of OB she is sliding slowly downward.  You feel like she is just about to really have a failure, but doesn't really fail and also doesn't really recover.  To me, this was not satisfying because it seemed like the plot was setting up the expectation that Shallan was going to do something spectacularly wrong like Kalladin's part in the assassination attempt on Elhokar or even paralleling Mistborn's arc for Vin in Book 2 where she is temporarily led astray by the forces of evil until she realizes the error of her ways.  Instead, Shallan lost control of herself mentally in the middle of the book and was able to stop the bleeding by the end of the book.  It's implied in the book that she's OK by the end, maybe not fully 100% better but out of the woods.  I personally would have found it more satisfying if she had not been OK by the end of the book - still out of control with a real implication that she was likely to get worse before she got better.  To me, I would have preferred it if it felt like her downward trend was still continuing as the camera cut away at the end of the book or if she had fully recovered or was on a path to recovery that felt satisfying.  That would set up great expectations for her character in Book 4, setting the stage for her to rise up and overcome or fail completely.

The second thing I didn't like about the middle parts was that it felt like Szeth became shoehorned into the main cast without earning his place.  I know this has been discussed at length, but I really think Szeth's story would have been more enjoyable to me if he had remained a neutral 3rd party for a while with both Nale and Dalinar trying to win him over.

 

That said, I still enjoyed OB overall and will read it again.  I'm not going to dictate to Sanderson how he writes his story, I'm sure this will all pay off in the end.

[Subvisual Haze]

"Middle book syndrome" and POV multiplication diluting the thrust of the plot are the main problems I think I had with Oathbringer.  On the whole it's a great book, and I'm sure it's laying the groundwork for amazing payoffs in later books, but it doesn't stand by itself as well as a self-contained story for me compared to TWoK or WoR.

[Yvainnie she/her]

Even though I love Kaladin he was so depressed as the book continued that his chapers became not even heavy but rather pathetic. 

And Shallan and her phsychological problems were almost weirdly accurate but I just dont like her character very much so I would rather read more cahpters about someone else. 

But both of them had some awesome badass moments like:

Spoiler

Windspren and killed Fused and that illusion army

 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

On 2018-05-31 at 6:52 PM, agrabes said:

Shallan - Has also done a lot in the first two books and is seemingly on a continual upward path at the end of WoR.  Early in OB, you start to see a few cracks form around the edges and through the middle of OB she is sliding slowly downward.  You feel like she is just about to really have a failure, but doesn't really fail and also doesn't really recover.  To me, this was not satisfying because it seemed like the plot was setting up the expectation that Shallan was going to do something spectacularly wrong like Kalladin's part in the assassination attempt on Elhokar or even paralleling Mistborn's arc for Vin in Book 2 where she is temporarily led astray by the forces of evil until she realizes the error of her ways.  Instead, Shallan lost control of herself mentally in the middle of the book and was able to stop the bleeding by the end of the book.  It's implied in the book that she's OK by the end, maybe not fully 100% better but out of the woods.  I personally would have found it more satisfying if she had not been OK by the end of the book - still out of control with a real implication that she was likely to get worse before she got better.  To me, I would have preferred it if it felt like her downward trend was still continuing as the camera cut away at the end of the book or if she had fully recovered or was on a path to recovery that felt satisfying.  That would set up great expectations for her character in Book 4, setting the stage for her to rise up and overcome or fail completely.

 

This is perfect, and I agree 100%. Great post. 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

On 2018-05-31 at 6:52 PM, agrabes said:

Shallan - Has also done a lot in the first two books and is seemingly on a continual upward path at the end of WoR.  Early in OB, you start to see a few cracks form around the edges and through the middle of OB she is sliding slowly downward.  You feel like she is just about to really have a failure, but doesn't really fail and also doesn't really recover.  To me, this was not satisfying because it seemed like the plot was setting up the expectation that Shallan was going to do something spectacularly wrong like Kalladin's part in the assassination attempt on Elhokar or even paralleling Mistborn's arc for Vin in Book 2 where she is temporarily led astray by the forces of evil until she realizes the error of her ways.  Instead, Shallan lost control of herself mentally in the middle of the book and was able to stop the bleeding by the end of the book.  It's implied in the book that she's OK by the end, maybe not fully 100% better but out of the woods.  I personally would have found it more satisfying if she had not been OK by the end of the book - still out of control with a real implication that she was likely to get worse before she got better.  To me, I would have preferred it if it felt like her downward trend was still continuing as the camera cut away at the end of the book or if she had fully recovered or was on a path to recovery that felt satisfying.  That would set up great expectations for her character in Book 4, setting the stage for her to rise up and overcome or fail completely.

 

This is perfect, and I agree 100%. Great post.