I am exactly in the same situation, I finally decided to join the board mainly to post about theese news from Brandon and I think that this matter as a whole is a real mess and and to be specific I don't like it at all. I am a "little" mad for this mess 'cause I Bought english hardcover of WoR and WoK 15 days ago to start my "perfect" collection with all the colour pages, because I am Italian so I usually take the translated versions that don't have colourmaps , make a mess of the art and with traduction and adaptation you usally loose many things. Now having said this I am not so concerned about future books, because like someone already said this is the first time happening, and it doesn't mean that every time will be like this. Also It's not a really immense thing and so we could let Brandon slip away with it. After all Brandon is the artist, He knows what It's going to happen next and if He thinks that this way is BETTER we can assume He knows what He's doing.
After all I am Okay with what He is doing with Elantris, I think that after 10 years and so many things happened, with the "Cosmere Project" grown up so much, with a sequel arriving in the next few years and with His ability as a writer increased so much it's a good thing go back to Elantris and fixing thing. At this point even the changing of a major plot point would'nt be so much of a problem, it 's what actually Happened with the Hobbit: while doing the sequel (TLoTR) and increasing so much the scope Tolkien felt the need to go back and change what happened between Bilbo and Gollum.
But that happened 13 years after the first release while doing a sequel that changed everything about the scope and the ambition of Tolkien work. It doesn't fit at all WoR in my opinion for two major reasons:
-The first is the time gap between the first and the second version (13 years for the hobbit, slight more than a year for Wor).
-The second is that Tolkien didn't plan for the Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion when writing The Hobbit, Brandon instead should already be very well aware of the consequences that certain actions would have further in the next books.
And This is my general opinion about this mess it could be very well be taken as a rant and pearaphs it is, but even if I know deep down that it's not this big of a problem it let me a little upset.
Now what I think would need a proper consideration is the way that changes are implemented:
IF this is the final version,I think there is something really off with all of this, most of all with Szeth death scene. Both 1st and 2nd edition feels off. And in my opinion this is beacuse Brandon struggled too much to get those right. It actually feels like he rewrited it too many times and grew frustated about it, and also you can tell it's a very important scene for him 'cause He used so many words to be sure to have explained the situation to the reader. This is infodump. He warned a lot about this both in "out of excuses " audio lessons and in various videos of conferences and lessons He did in the years.This scene IT' S THE PEAK of the book, the realisation of the promise of a confrontation between these two characters. It want to be flashy and fast but having narrator voice interrupting and saing things like " HE expected a parry. The move was intended to draw Szeth out of his attack pattern." or like "In that instant, for reasons he could not have articulated—pity, perhaps?— Kaladin diverted his blow" feel really off beacause disrupt the flow of action in the mind of the reader. I don't think that to give justification during the fight in this way it's a good idea.
And even if I think it's good that kaladin doesn't go for the killing and don't consciously kill because of his characterization, to have Szeth killed by the storm take something from him. By having the confrontation ending this way all the fight and all the book loose something. The problem is the PROMISE. A major part of the book and of the story this far is about this confrontation; to have Kaladin spare him and he immediatly be killed by the highstorm feels really off, it dampen the mood and the epicness, and it is even more out of character for kaladin not saving him at this point, seen that he will protect even those who he hate, and that Szeth lost in the storm without the bond is lost like a child. The first version feels like Kaladin is too committed to stop when he realizes that Szeth want to die, and I think is actually a good thing, It gives a touch of realism and tragedy to all the scene. When in an actual fight It's difficult to stop at the last moment and even if you succeed to stop something could go wrong, after all is Szeth that want to die. but having him dying by the storm feel really off.
That all said the major problem with the other changings is a general unnecessary infodump maybe done to be sure the reader would actually understand what happened, and It's probably caused by the major changing to Szeth scene.
All of this said I am still a very big Sanderson Fan and I hope that between here and the release of the paperback things will be solved for the best and that is what is better for , the book, the series , the cosmere , the author and the readers. I know It's a difficult task but Brandon set the bar high and so we expect a lot.
Please Excuse me for this extralong 2nd post and for errors and bad english, I hope none will take offense from it I only expressed what I felt.
Hi to all the people of the Seventeenth Shard! Here is a Brandon fan from Rome in Italy. Yes I'm italian so excuse me for bad english and errors, 'cause I'm not mother tongue and I'm not really good at it. I study computer engineering at university here in Rome. I have been a BIG reader since I was a little kid. The first real novel was 20000 leagues under the sea at the age of 8. And this is when and how I started reading. Since then I read a lot of things, and obviously a really big part of thoose were fantasy books. Here is my story about how I got to know about Brandon works: Like many others It started with Wheel of Time. I started reading it in 2011 Fall, and In three months I read the first 12 volumes transleted in italian. In february 2012 Midnight towers was published in my country, so in about 4 months I read more than 10,000 pages. Then There was a very long year of waiting until AMoL. A that point I was so eager to read the end, that I bought the english hardcover from Amazon, and that became my FIRST english novels. Obviusly It was a difficult reading for me at times, but I enjoyed it so much that It was worth the trouble. I think that what Brandon did With WoT was beautiful and that the end was magnificent. At this point I had the mix of joy and sadness that always follow when something big for you end. And so I had the need to find something else to read, I started Mistborn and I loved it. But the real thing appened around a year ago, when in a bookshop I picked up the Way of Kings. I read It in 4-5 days and I found myself thinking "SOMETHING HAS CHANGED". For me WoK changed everything and after a week Words of Radiance was out. So I bought the ebook, and was true love. What follows It is history, I read every Brandon's work and followed his blog and sometimes this forum. I never signed up 'cause I didn't want to loose myself even more. But today I decided to make this big mistake of dedicating my life to this board and to the art of theorizing. So here I am. I regret that to drive me to join was the blog-post about the changing to the end of Wor on Brandon site. But i'll express my opinion on the metter in the proper thread. Sorry about this long post, I hope I'll find home here, and I am eager to start theorizing about how investiture affects people and other things with the lot of you.