What did you expect from Rhythm of War, but not get?

[WasingtheWhy]

When I read the sample chapters before RoW's release, I expected things to happen a little differently with Kaladin. After he was removed from the field and decided to work with his father again, I thought there might me an interlude or a few short chapters with Laral. Especially after hearing he had a short but doomed relationship with Lyn, I fully expected Kaladin to kind of reconnect with this girl of his youth and if not have a romantic relationship, at least a friendship that could help him learn to move forward. He reconnected with his family instead, most notably his father.

That being said, I was very surprised that Laral was barely even mentioned in passing. I'm not disappointed, or pleased, but with the way that it seems (to me anyways) that Kaladin is at least in the market for a lady friend, I thought that this latest installment would have something of that for him.

What did you expect? Were you right or wrong?

[Solant he/him]

I've held a theory since OB that Tarah is in Urithiru. I fully expected her to show up in this one.

[Leuthie]

Expected to see Zahel/Vasher fight when the tower was attacked.

I wanted to see Leshwi and Kaladin fight again, but am also glad that they'll probably be on the same side next time.

[StormingTexan he/him]

After the preview chapters I thought we would finally get to see some more of the other KR orders in action. Especially with the pre-view chapters during the rescue at Hearthstone. I felt like we ended up seeing a lit more Fused in action than KR. Plus Dalinar mentioning all the other orders early on then a few orders going on the Shadesmar mission. It seems like we are pretty far along to only see a few KR orders in action to me. Maybe next book! 

[AonEne he/him]

I expected more Willshaper Ideals, but maybe next book!

[Xerun]

I expected to get something MORE from Venli. She felt very much an afterthought to this book. I expected her to take a stand and do something heroic. But even as the book ends it doesn’t seem like she’d be willing to do anything Radiant. I needed much more development for her. 

[HoidIsAdonalsium]

I definitely wanted to see more Edgedancer/Dustbringer powers in action. Heck, this was Venlis book and we barely got to know anything about Willshapers.

[Elegy he/him]

We got two new Ideals in total, and both were obvious before the book. The Radiants in Shadesmar were the most wasted characters in any Stormlight book so far, they just vanished out of the story without doing anything.

And, of course, more Renarin! Because he's the most under-utilized character in Stormlight in general. His page-time doesn't match his importance for the story at all (cancelling future sight, the main villain's most powerful weapon)

[Mage he/him]

On 12/22/2020 at 0:43 PM, Leuthie said:

Expected to see Zahel/Vasher fight when the tower was attacked.

I wanted to see Leshwi and Kaladin fight again, but am also glad that they'll probably be on the same side next time.

Yeah! After Vasher's big reveal in part one and then the siege of the tower, I thought that he would have helped a little more. Kaladin was all by himself fighting this invasion, and there was a perfectly capable (and by that I mean storming good) swordsman, who is also immortal and has magical powers that aren't suppressed by the siblings corruption. Where the heck was he?

[Ashbringer he/him]

Honestly I was expecting much more of a... war. The Occupation of Urithiru was very well written, but the only real war scenes were Jasnah vs the singers in Emul, the original Deepest Ones invasion of the tower, and Leshwi and friends vs the occupiers of Urithiru. And the first two... Jasnah just kind of demolished everything in her way, and the invasion wasn’t so much a war as a spec ops strike and then skirmish for the gem pillar.

 

Oh, also the Heralds. No one’s even mentioned Vedel yet, and we only sort of kind of can guess at Paliah. Sure we got Kalak and Ishar, who both were awesome, and another piece of evidence for Liss being Chanarach. But Vedel, Paliah, Chanarach, and Battar all have yet to be confirmed or found at all.

[Gears]

Another name of the ten fools! We've gotten one in each book so far [Cabine [the adult who behaves like a child], Eshu [the ignorant one who claims knowledge], Dilid [the Sisyphus of Roshar]] except here. I was expecting 1 per book always, and then we'd know them all by the end. Honestly, quite disappointing. There were many foolish moments in the book, so couldn't they have shoved a name in there somewhere?

[Mat he/him]

3 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

But Vedel, Paliah, Chanarach, and Battar all have yet to be confirmed or found at all.

I think Battar was sort of confirmed. Taravangian mentioned her in his first interlude, check the book for the actual wording. I think it’s like the last paragraph or so. 

[Who Sharded?]

I thought Adolin would bond with Maya and become an Edgedancer.  I still think he's going to become a Radiant at some point.  Pretty much every other important character is now.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Who Sharded?

[Honorless he/him]

I expected more from Venli. We were led to believe that she was the researcher of the Listeners but she was mostly just led along by Ulim.

[Dracnor he/him]

Navani being a scientist but not radiant. Rlain becoming a Bondsmith and creating with Venli a third faction.

Real Szeth content/character dev.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Dracnor

[Jellomancer]

Ooh, a few things even though the book was very satisfying.

• More information on the Unmade, particularly in connection to Shallan's family.
• More focus on Adolin-- it felt like there were some pretty wide gaps between his scenes at times.
• More information about Szeth (we did get some but not very much)
• A cameo from Azure and more involvement from Zahel

Edited December 30, 2020 by Jellomancer

[Ba-Ado-Fisherman]

On 12/27/2020 at 2:24 PM, Elegy said:

We got two new Ideals in total, and both were obvious before the book. The Radiants in Shadesmar were the most wasted characters in any Stormlight book so far, they just vanished out of the story without doing anything.

And, of course, more Renarin! Because he's the most under-utilized character in Stormlight in general. His page-time doesn't match his importance for the story at all (cancelling future sight, the main villain's most powerful weapon)

I think we aren't going to get much Renarin simply because his internal voice alone would reveal a ton of information that isn't ready to be shared yet.  Renarin is surely going to be one of the more important characters going forward, but I don't see us getting too many viewpoint chapters from him until the second arc.

[Elegy he/him]

18 minutes ago, Ba-Ado-Fisherman said:

I think we aren't going to get much Renarin simply because his internal voice alone would reveal a ton of information that isn't ready to be shared yet.  Renarin is surely going to be one of the more important characters going forward, but I don't see us getting too many viewpoint chapters from him until the second arc.

Yeah, that much is certain by now. But to put this into perspective: According to the Stormlight Archive Statistical Analysis page on the Coppermind, Renarin's total word count is still, four books into the series, below that of Cenn.

Cenn died in the first chapter of the first book.

I didn't expect him to have a notable word count in this one (or book 5, for that matter), but certainly more than this. Jasnah, for instance, has spoken four Oaths and knows a ton now that she's around Wit the whole time. Her POVs should technically reveal so much, yet she still had two whole chapters in this book (and in the total series, her POV word count that is more than 4x that of Renarin).

Anyway, it isn't that big of a deal to me as it might seem like right now. It's just very odd. I expect him to basically take Shallan's place in the back 5 in terms of importance, so that's something to hope for. But I definitely hoped we would get a bit more of him a lot sooner after Oathbringer set him up to be super important.

[Nef]

Based upon part 1, I expected Leshwi to feature more. There was that chapter where she was claiming first right to duel Kaladin over the Pursuer, which I thought was foreshadowing a bigger role in the occupation of Uirithru than she ended up having.