WhiteLeeopard

I considered it, but I just started making memes myself. Its surprisingly easy and fun .

Honestly, Taln lasting for 4500 doesn't seem impressive. It seems impossible. Which is why I've suspected for a while something was going on in those 4500 years. Either Odium decided to purpusefully not move in, or Taln went so nuts he lost all sense of self. Or something else. But simply lasting 4500 years of torture in those conditions is not possible. The Heralds were all broken by the time they broke the Oathpact, and I doubt Taln was in much better shape.

I didn't get the impression Re-Shephir was bound by the pillar, rather I got the impression s/he was hiding it to either block its function or absorb its light herself (will go with female pronouns). What makes me really curious is...why would a traitor fight for Odium? And what would a traitor hope to gain? We did see in chapters that in the past diplomacy was never tried, so the modern nations semi-yielding is obviously not the norm. My overall impression was that Re-Shephir's imprisionment ended a long time ago, otherwise she'd be much more jumpy than she already was. That would drop him down to Voidbringer...sounds good.

Considering we likely read the end of Part 1 for Dalinar and Shallan that is not surprising . I was a bit underwhelmed by the Unmade, I had expected them to be at least a match for a Herald, yet a not even full radiant without full understanding of her powers was capable of setting it on the run? Maybe it was a trick, or playing low level for some reason? On Lyn...I am starting to think she is kind of Roshar's version of a radiant groupie (meant in a nice way). She probably was the one seing Shallan's sketchbooks and asking what it was like been a KR with a Shardblade . Since Shallan wasn't too interested Lyn mysteriously ended up with Kaladin's squires . If she were more suspicious I'd be screaming secret society, but she seems such a sweetie I'd rather believe fan, and someday squire. I am so sooo looking forward to exploring Urithiru's real face. What we've seen so far is amazing, but the library, murals, gemstone pillar .

And @king of nowhere asked for this one

Most of the book descriptions of Brandon's books seem written by someone that has understood nothing of the story. Maybe because he doesn't write those, so there is an obvious quality difference. Stormlight archive is great when you get to it, but the Way of Kings requires some patience to get started.

Poor Dalinar is going to be exhausted after each highstorm. Communicating with every single leader plus his radiants not in Urithiru while the highstorm makes the passes. As an aside...how cool would it be if Tezim is Ishar and Dalinar meets him by trying to hook him into a vision?

So Shallan did not tell her men the truth about Veil. Probably the best, I was a bit worried Veil could be too easily tracked to Shallan if too many people knew. That was surprising. I was sure she would go alone heedless of what was ahead. Here is the fool of this book. Hmm. I wonder, what if the known Urithiru is mainly the "public" face which they use to house all the kingdoms for Desolations? While the real Urithiru they use as home to the KR is hidden below/in secret corridors. Hype! Confirmation how Voidbinding will be like? Nice chapters.

First impressions. Dalinar again. Lets see. Politics. Yawn. Destroy the Oathgate, -snort-, good luck with that, I'm sure it'll be easier than breaking a wooden door. Nice nice, seems he finally failed. Maybe means he will do something fun the other 4 parts. A bit of a twisted logic. But not entirely sure I disagree. Roshar is a strange place, but it definetely does seem stupid that people seem to ignore honesty over vipers like Sadeas. So Oathbringer is found...I was starting to think it would be in the hands of a society member. Heh, so the poor spren of oathbringer is in even worse shape than the average dead spren? Poor spren, I can't blame her/him. In the hands of Sunbringer, Blackthorn and Sadeas? Seems I was completely off my mark. The day you won it...so maybe people are right he didn't kill the boy. And back to Dalinar's incredibly poor decision making skills. I didn't take it as badly as most people last week when he did nothing as he was backed against the wall. But this time he does acknowledge he will do nothing. Great job, why would we not want to have a known backstabber at my back during the doom of the world? -Cocks head- Is this denial? Has he told himself he won the blade so many times he believes it? It did happen. It wasn't a story. While the great brightlord was lying on his back. And said darkeye now could likely defeat every alethi shardbearer at the same time. So his point is...? Muahahhah. And thus my above point is strengthened. There is no difference between battle and backstabbing for Amaram. Hint hint Dalinar. Why isn't Adolin here to point out the obvious? Then again better not, he likely will need a bit of time to calm down from the discovery of the blade. I've just realized something. Kaladin and Shallan know Dalinar. But I think they are the only ones that do. The alethi just see the Blackthorn, and nothing else. Interesting. And then he wonders why the rest of Roshar don't trust him when the people in front of him haven't seen he has changed. Well, hello first public hint of T! What do we all bet Dalinar ignores it/doesn't think anything further of it? This could actually be fun.

I think they also match the size of the moons. As the blue gem is the biggest and I think that the blue moon was also the biggest.

The scene in WoR with the deserters was on first read the hardest to believe. But later on I sort of assumed that soldiers running from Sadeas was actually a compliment to the soldiers. Plus what kari said above of Shallan using illumination. The hardest scenes to swallow for me were actually her first alethi court meeting, and her first GB meeting where Mraize was planning to kill her. With the deserters Shallan spoke with idealism and a fairy tale view of the world, of which she has plenty and I can believe when boosted with stormlight. The problem is in the alethi court and specially in the GB meeting she needed more than a big heart, she needed a deeper knowledge of what was appropiate to say to get out on top of both situations. Which she did. In the alethi court I can sort of forgive it by stretching facts a bit and saying her training with Jasnah and Tyn allowed it. But the GB meeting? Thats the toughest to believe for me. She has no knowledge of the underground, and that kind of bold but smart subterfuge isn't something anyone (even Tyn) had taught her or she had ever seen in action. Mraize and Iyatil did compliment her on her sneakiness very fast, and neither is the sort to give compliments easily.

Good point, sorry. Sample chapters discussions tend to twist around like a herd of squirrels.

I think I may have been the one to start the topic as you say, although not sure. Nevertheless let me clarify some things. 1. I am a woman 2. I am actually quite a feminist 3. However, my feminist ideas mean the following: I want to see women, both IRL and in fiction succeed. But. I do not want to see women suceed because they are women, so things are given to them for free. I want to see women suceed because they are good and they earn them. To give things for free to a woman "because she is a woman" isn't feminism or fairness from my POV. Its actually a huge insult to the women, as you seem to be implying they are worse than men and need to be given stuff for free to be able to gain anything. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be a very extended view in today's world, where feminism is that women should be given everything for free even if they don't have the skills to back it up. I haven't read many of the posts after this, so I'm not sure how the discussion has progressed. I actually think that Shallan is not too insanely accomplished. As she has her reasons for having gotten so far (illusions and lightweaving go a lot deeper than what your eyes can sense). And because from what we have seen on OB Shallan is preparing for a mental meltdown. Dalinar seems insanely accomplished, but he has 50 years of experience to back it up. And even then he has some huge gaps in his knowledge and abilities. Kaladin is kind of insanely accomplished, (warrior, surgeon, strategist etc). I guess we could say he is just very imaginative...but its possible he is the closest to mary sue around here. Still, going back to Shallan, if she doesn't have a big fail soon I would find it unrealistic. Added after having read the posts.

Absolutely. But a big difference is that for all of WoK and a third of WoR Kaladin's motto is "I failed". Despite this been largely due to his depression, you could still argue he is very aware of his failures. If anything he wallows far too much on them (1 book definetely counts as too much). In contrast, Dalinar deep down thinks his failure was letting Gavilar die. Everything else he usually ignores or shrugs it off pretty quickly. My problem isn't that Dalinar makes worse decisions than other characters (although his bad decisions usually have a lot bigger repercussions so). My problem is that other characters hurt for their bad decisions for a long time afterwards, while Dalinar usually forgets about them 5 minutes later, and so does everyone else around him. And personally I'd count the side carry from Kaladin as a success. He cost Sadeas the battle, but who cares for that, he got strung up for it, but he could survive that, and the most important part none of his men died during the battle. Which is arguably what Kaladin cares about. Reason he got depressed after the side carry was that he realized the point of bridgemen was to die. 6000 men died at the Tower. I'm always going to be very harsh on any actions that led up to it. Also, Gavilar currently occupies most despicable being on Roshar on my mind. Yes, I wasn't really sure how to rank that one to be honest. I sort of decided to put it into fail because as he then talked with Shallan his task was to unite the KR, not create them. But I agree that one is tricky to categorize. -Wince- Okay, I will add plan to trap Amaram as success to original post. But not telling Kaladin is from my point of view Dalinar's biggest failure in WoR. It wasn't just Kaladin's feelings. It was a large part of what made him go to the Diagramists and the mess where he lost Syl. Granted, Kaladin can make his own decisions, but he wouldn't have ever done that if he had though Dalinar truly had his back. No worries, part of what I love of the 17th Shard is there is always a lot of inherent respect in every post, so likewise don't take my comments in a negative way. Also, been perfectly honest I don't feel as negatively about Dalinar as it may have seemed, problem is every other character's failings are analysed under a microscope. While Dalinar seems to get a golden medal for every action he makes, which is why I'm sometimes quite harsh on him. Great post. I personally hope Shallan gets a fail soon (I'm not against failures, without them story and characters would be boring. I'm against not having failures acknolwedged and learning from them). Shallan did everything too perfectly on WoR. I was actually a bit worried that SA will go down a path some authors are making a lot these days. Which is that everything the female lead does goes perfectly, while more than half of what the male leads do are utter failures. But I don't think so any more, since after the sample chapters we can see Shallan is a total mess.

That would be fun to see . I'd also love to see Shallash make an appeareance in Urithiru.

Yes. But I decided not to include OB yet as some of his current decisions haven't yet "panned out". Although most of his current OB decisions seem terrible maybe some will actually become successes... How Urithiru is been used hurts my heart to see. It should have been a place for RADIANTS to be at home, to feel at peace. Instead seems highprinces rule it and KR are afterthoughts to be used and ignored the rest of the time. I suppose its reasonable that KR can't be in full control with no idea of what to do, and with 5 members. But its better to start off well than to have to fix it later on. Of course there is the thing Shallan is hunting to deal with...

Dalinar is an odd character in that both everyone close to him in-world and a high majority of readers see him as perfect and see every decision he makes as perfect. They often don't even forgive him for bad decisions because they think there is nothing to forgive (obviously I mean current Dalinar, with no Blackthorn hints). I've become used to this Dalinar worship, so I seldom mention it except when pointed out by others. But honestly, Dalinar has to be one of the characters in SA with a worst decision-success ratio. Lets go over it: TWoK Try diplomacy with highprinces. Fail Ignore visions. Fail Work with Sadeas. Fail Ignore Adolin's warnings and trust Sadeas instead. Fail Let Elhokar sort of rule. Fail Take directions from visions as absolute. Fail Give Shardblade for Kaladin and his men. Success Get fed up of Elhokar and take over. Success Give Kaladin a powerful position and trust him. Success WoR Start plan to get Shards from highprinces. Success although only thanks to Kaladin turning out to be a surgebinder, and came close to losing his son in the process. Decide visions told him to refound KR. Fail Do nothing about Sadeas. Fail Make plan to find Amaram's true colors. Success Decide to keep quiet of his plan to determine Amaram's true colors and not tell Kaladin. Fail Appoint Amaram head of KR. Fail Decide to go out into the heart of the SP. Success Out Amaram and not bother to deal with him in the spot. Fail Looking at it, it seems Dalinar makes 30% correct decisions at best. Which is rather appalling. I tried to be objective and look at final outcomes, and not intentions or anything else. If anyone feels I left out any other decision I can update it, I was going entirely off my memory. I'm rather lukewam about Dalinar as a character, I don't hate him, but I don't love him either, I'm sort of fond of him but I also see him as a bit of a life grenade. In general I expect him to make bad decisions upon bad decisions, specially at the start of the book. But for some reason he always comes out rosy and everyone's belief in him never shakes.

The "what an upstanding guy" for Adolin, makes me think the theory that someone else will be blamed and he will come out so an innocent isn't punished in his place went up a few notches.

I'd be more excited if its Nightblood we see in OB. I like Vivena, and will enjoy seeing her. But Nightblood is so mysterious. We have no real clue of what he does, of what his limits are, and most importantly what powers he will have on Roshar. We've seen many WoBs saying Nightblood is not normal, and is a lot more powerful than it should be. Why? But I guess Nightblood is out of the cards considering the review. Maybe Vasher makes a lifeless?

My thoughts on Amaram. I couldn't care less whether he goes on to save Roshar, he will still be one of the most despicable people on the planet. At present only person to beat him for first spot is Gavilar. My arguments: What is the worst thing a person can do? 1. Betray a friend. 2. Betray your men who trust you. Ocassions when it is acceptable to do so: a. When you literally have no choice. Ocassions when it becomes absolutely abominable to do so: b. Personal gain Amaram happily did 2, he had plenty of choice, he had personal gain and to add insult to injury he started spouting off about "the greater good". When a person starts talking about the greater good its a good time to either put a continent between you or hire assasins. Because it means they are going to start doing evil things while telling themselves fancy lies that they are heroes while they do so to be able to sleep at night. Not only are they despicable, but they don't even have the strength to admit it. Veredict: Despicable, weak, cowardly.

It could be argued they weren't regular troops. They were elites chosen by the Blackthorn himself. Although they usually did seem to give him plenty of space, guess that time it wasn't enough.

That...wasn't something I had thought of but I could totally see something similar happening. I'm not convinced Adolin will be exiled/dissappear as that would get him out of the narrative as he has very few pov. But I could see Adolin been killed, then Renarin reviving him in the nick of time.

As much fun as that would be, that would add more chaos to Alethkar. Adolin is responsible and won't be the reason to give *cough-more-cough* headaches to his family. Personally, I just want Jasnah to return and assasinate the Damnation out of her family's enemies. Scratch that, I want Sons of Honor, Ghostbloods and Diagrams to assasinate the Damnation out of each other, and then Jasnah can sweep in and assasinate the remains.

Considering the craziness of alethi law and custom this wouldn't surprise me at all. I'm kind of ambibalent about Dalinar, but I doubt he has accepted the need to work with Amaram. He was just cornered and he knew it.

Adolin thought Amaram was fishy because he was "too shiny", and real people are not that perfect. However he was wiling to let it go and think the best of him. Until Kaladin told about the shards and the betrayal, and Adolin was disgusted (its two very big crimes after all, steal shards, kill your men, and three if you count the lie). But I suspect a large part of Adolin's new dislike for Amaram is just loyalty for Kaladin. Adolin is quite protective of those close to him, Kaladin seemed to reach that spot for him on the last fourth of WoR (from 4v1 duel onwards). I agree Shallan is unraveling, but I don't see Adolin acting unusual for him at all. He is a tiny bit more vocal than I expected and he is hiding Sadeas' killing spectacularly, but no major variations from his character. edit: ninja'd