Jon

Ya definitely knocks the series down quite a bit for me as well. I also don't think I'd recommend the series at this point. It really is a shame, because it starts out so strong with the first couple books, but it kind of fell apart. Early in the series the characters felt fleshed out and I wanted to root for them, but in this last book they just feel like walking stereotypes. I think a lot of the issue is what other people have noted, there is a lot of telling rather than showing. In the early books we see Kaladin be confronted by dark thoughts but press on, in WaT we just get told he still struggles but choses to be happy instead. I think Renarin was one of the worst examples of this in the book. Instead of showing situations where his inability to pick up on social cues causes him trouble, we just get long soliloquies from him bluntly stating how it makes things hard for him. I told my wife it reminded me of reading something someone would write in a Reddit post. So much of the stuff is so blunt and on the nose as well. Hey librarian lady, did you know bullying is bad? Hey Szeth, did you know its okay to make decisions for yourself?. It comes off as preachy, and its a shame in a series that handled things with a lot more nuance in earlier books. I think a lot of the plot was weak in this book as well. A lot of the threads just felt kind of pointless. The whole quest for BAM, which is a major part of the book, never really ends up impacting anything in this book. Yes, I know it sets things up for the future, but with how much of the book was dedicated to that line, I expected her release to influence the contest or do something major to change the outcome of things, instead we have all that build up that just leads to her disappearing. A lot of other stuff is like that as well, the whole shattered planes plotline feels kind of aimless and ends in a status quo. Odium's perpendicularity gets discovered, which feels like it should be a huge game changer, and everyone immediately proceeds to just kind of forget it exists. Dalinar and Navani experience visions which dump lots of historical information, but ultimately don't effect anything. Some of the big reveals also felt like a letdown. For 5 books we have wondered what was the cause of the recreance. What could make every single non-skybreaker radiant forsake their oaths? Oh, Honor got scared and simultaneously showed them all a vision of how their powers could possibly be destructive. I think that show much was left hanging and unresolved left a bad taste in my mouth as well, knowing that this is the end of the first arc and that its gonna be a long long time before any new books. Knowing the future books are gonna time skip ahead it just felt unsatisfying to leave so much up in the air. All in all I was kind of bummed out with the book, and the more I've thought about it the less I've liked it.

I feel like I need to lead with the fact that I enjoyed RoW a lot, but it is probably my least favorite of the four. It felt less eventful to me. Oathbringer probably is my favorite of the bunch, as I really enjoyed pretty much all the arcs, where as most the books at least some of them kind of fell flat for me. Shallan's arcs in the first two books were okay, but I really enjoyed her investigating Urithiru. The flashback segments are also usually not my favorite, as for most of them its kind of clear where things are going. We knew Kaladin hates lighteyes and thinks they always break their promises. Pretty obvious a lighteyes is going to betray him and his brother is going to die. We knew Shallan's family was messed up and that she killed her father. With Dalinar his memory was literally missing. There definitely were some correct predictions on the forums, but it wasn't 100% certain how it would play out from the start. On a side note, I'm looking forward to Szeth flashbacks, I feel like there is a lot we don't know about him and the Shin in general. The Kholinar arc was great. The whole thing had a tense creepy kind of vibe that I really enjoyed. The first real look into Shadesmar was was interesting for how weird everything was. The final battle for Oathbringer was also fantastic. So many of the characters got big moments.

I've had issues with depression in the past, and while its not a constant or even regular thing for me, I have had episodes that have lasted for weeks/months. I do really appreciate the realism that some of the chapters display. The two that really stand out to me are the bit with Adolin taking him out in RoW that has already been mentioned (definitely one of my favorite chapters), and the sequence where Kaladin is in jail in WoR. The bit that really stands out to me from the jail sequence is when Kaladin is thinking that all his friends are probably relieved not to have him around. Its such a ridiculous irrational thing to think, as its been shown that bridge four practically worships him, but that's how depression can be a lot of the time. I've definitely been bothered by similar thoughts that I know are entirely untrue on a rational level, but I'm unable to shake the feeling on an emotional level. I think this might also be why readers can get frustrated with Kaladin, he definitely is being irrational and overly negative, but that is pretty true to life for depression in my experience. I also can appreciate the realistic depiction just because I know the first time I had a serious episode of depression I felt like I must be going crazy or something, and reading about other people with similar issues helped me to make sense of it, and in turned helped with coping with it. I've found its easier to deal with when I have been able to recognize that I'm depressed. I can tell myself not to trust the way I'm currently feeling because I know the negativity will pass. Knowing that other people have the same sorts of irrational thought processes makes it easier to reject the negative thoughts as being caused by depression.

Ah good to know. Thanks for digging up that WoB.

Ya that occurred to me after I wrote that. It doesn't really hold up that each order has a unique primary surge, but I still wonder if there is a defined progression to which they master the surges. It does seem like windrunners gain adhesion before gravitation, and skybreakers get gravitation before division. Maybe its just a simple as them starting with the less dangerous surge.

It was kind of my take that each order has a primary and secondary surge, and that the suppression was enough to lock out their secondary surge, but not the primary one.

So I think a lot of us having been considering that the contest will be the climax of book five, but I'm beginning to wonder if that will actually be the case. Given that there are only 10 days until the contest, and there is a lot left to tie up that would take longer than that, I think it may be a real possibility that the contest takes place in the first or second act of the book, and the rest of the book deals with the fallout.

Szeth isn't the most stable individual. If there was anyone likely to not notice, or at least not attach significance to it, it would probably be him.

knife/knives of ____________ sounds like a real title to me. Keeper of Woe was another good one that sound pretty plausible to me. Its a little close to Bearer of Agonies though, which is already a title that gets used in the books. On a side note, Bearer of Agonies would make a sweet book title in the back 5.

Ya, I've dealt with some episodes of depression, and the descriptions in this chapter were pretty spot on.

Ya I very much was getting that vibe as well. I don't know about it being a Cryptic specifically, but a spren seems very likely to me. I'm leaning toward the sibling, though I have no idea how the gen would have gotten there.

You don't remember the interlude with the spaceship? In all seriousness though, I have no idea what that cover is trying to represent.

Ah, I think somehow I'd missed the bit that you quoted. I was remembering his quotes from the first book.

I'm not sure we could say that Veil is the primary personality from one chapter alone. She is out spying on people in the chapter, it makes sense for her to be Veil at that point.

I think this is probably a big part of it. I think some of it is also that his views are taken to a point of being kind of irrational. He doesn't take the stance that violence should be a last resort, he takes the stance that it never can solve anything. His repeated insistence that you can't save anyone by killing someone else flies in the face of reason, and he refuses to accept that. It would perhaps be easier to accept his position if he took some kind of moral stance that it was wrong to harm someone even in the name of saving someone, but that isn't what he argues with Kaladin. He cannot come to terms with the fact that people can be protected through violence.