agrabes

Ha - nothing too serious. Just that this is a fantasy novel, so why not make things the way I wish they would happen. In real world revolutions one of two things tends to happen: either there is a reactionary crackdown and the revolution is defeated or the revolution becomes increasingly more and more radical and violent. Not always, but most of the time. If we're talking in terms of the various revolutions from the 1700s to the 1900s, I'm more of a "constitutional monarchy" type guy - solve the immediate issues and make a path for future improvements. In a real revolution, I'm the type of guy who gets murdered or exiled after the first year because I don't want to go far enough. So I guess my fantasy is - what happens if the moderate reformers win the revolution?

I agree that you're right about what a more realistic response to the kind of reforms Jasnah is proposing would look like. And, what many revolutionary figures like Robespierre, Lenin, Mao, etc have done in pursuit of their goals. Though - I couldn't be further from your position on what I'd like to see in the books. Sometimes violence is necessary and society doesn't get to the point of a revolution without really, really bad things being done by the established order. But, if we're talking "agrabes ideal fantasy depiction of revolution" here, I'd like to see both sides of the dispute being given legitimate good points and some kind of compromise transition plan being reached. This is fantasy after all For example - let's cut from the point in the series where Jasnah murders her political rivals in the name of freedom. What I would have loved to see is: All but the most hardcore Kholin supporters turn away from Jasnah due to her actions. They call out her views as too radical. When the common people learn of what she did, they turn against her (common reaction in History - rural peasants often sided with the aristocracy at least initially because they don't want radical change.) We see someone, maybe Aladar, rise up and give speeches about how Jasnah's actions are an abuse of power and no better than the actions of absolute monarchs that she opposes. There is a real rift in Alethi politics, with major foreign powers picking sides. All parties remain firmly anti-Odium. The forces of Anti-Odium reach a crisis moment and nearly lose the war due to their factionalism. Finally, Jasnah admits she was too stubborn. Aladar delivers strong arguments about how increased freedom is best for the people, but cannot come at the cost of order and civil society. Jasnah fires back that if we leave the old aristocracy in place, nothing will change. Finally they reach a compromise solution that outlines a gradual transition to representative government and the end of serfdom and legal slavery. That's probably not realistic either, but it's closer to realistic in the direction that I like haha.

I'm not going to dispute your military theory ideas here - I can't really intelligently say if they are right or wrong so I'll assume you're right about how Dalinar may think in his approach to war. But - regardless of his approach to war, he is also a human. He's a human whose son completely undermined his entire political strategy, which was to reform the Alethi government so that high princes don't consider it valid to fight each other. Dalinar is never shown in the book to be considering how he deals with Adolin the way you describe (I can kill him, or just totally ignore what he did). It doesn't mean he didn't - but there's no reason for us to imply he did. I think the intended reading by the book is that Dalinar's compassion for his son meant he swept it under the rug and chose to ignore it rather than deal with his emotions. I'm not sure how Kaladin's time to make a decision is relevant here. There are many kinds of military decisions. Some involve long planning and deliberation over weeks, months, and even years. Some require split second decisions. And regardless of that, the decision Kaladin made regarding Elhokar was not military in nature. It was a personal moral decision. People can (and generally should in my view) use different decision-making logic in their personal and professional lives. The reason this works well in the story is because we see Kaladin's struggle as a human. When you say you think I don't like stories about wars - I think what you really mean is I don't like stories where people make extreme snap decisions with little consideration outside the context of real time pressure. I like stories about war and I enjoy genres like for example Military Sci-Fi. In those stories, the story is about the war and everyone is in military mode all the time because that's what the story is about. That's a totally different genre and is not what Stormlight Archive is about. But even in military stories (if they are well written) the characters do not make major strategic decisions without any consideration. Usually you follow a junior officer or enlisted who starts off just doing what they need to do to survive day to day. But over time, the hero usually moves up the ranks and starts to have to consider the wider consequences of their actions and at that point they become more reflective. In terms of moral complexity let me just respond to your scenarios with a short reply: Raboniel - Throwaway character (Raboniel) dealing with a minor character (Navani) about abstract and contrived topics. The idea that some of the fused want to end the fight is interesting, I'll give you that. But it seems to basically go nowhere. To the extent that it did go anywhere, it got way too bogged down in tropes and references to real world critique about colonialism. Navani/Collaboration - Not very morally complex, very boilerplate scenario that is not examined in depth. The Mink - This one does contain some small amount of moral complexity, but is given about 2 seconds of screen time and is not at all central to the plot. I don't give a crap about Herdaz and the Mink is way too much of a minor character to care about him personally. Discussion About Government Philosophy - This is actually an example of the exact opposite of moral complexity if you're talking about Jasnah vs Dalinar/Navani in RoW. The tone of this discussion as written in the prose is "Jasnah is a super genius and her plans to rapidly and radically change Alethi government are unquestionably right". There was one conversation in the books and it was Jasnah railroading her ideas into Dalinar and Navani. There was no consideration of the very real problems that Jasnah's ideas would cause in Alethi society.

In terms of the complexity thing - I think we're talking on the same point now. For me, I think it comes down to how these things were handled. Like in your example of the reaction to Adolin murdering Sadeas - I felt it was not handled well. It was one of the reasons I felt the series started to go downhill with Oathbringer. I agree with you that Dalinar had to keep it a secret because revealing it would have really bad political consequences. But, he didn't have to mostly ignore it privately. I would have rather seen Dalinar getting really angry with Adolin, cutting him off or shutting him out of important decisions due to his recklessness. Regardless of how readers felt, this act was strongly against Dalinar's moral values and everything he was trying to do at that point in the story. We saw basically no reaction at all by Dalinar, we saw no real reaction by the Alethi nobility or at least not one that our heroes had to really even think about. By contrast, Kaladin talking to Moash about killing Elhokar is one of the best portrayed decisions in the series. The answers he gave in spoken word may have been simple, but he spent most of the book wrestling with the moral decision. Kaladin made the wrong choice at first, paid the price, and then redeemed himself. It's not so much about Character A said X to Character B, it's about how those characters think about and analyze their decisions. Do they think about it and seriously consider multiple sides? How does the writing portray the decision - does the prose imply we should believe the decision is morally indisputable (either good or bad)? If so, is that the result of a buildup and long consideration (example: Kaladin concluding he must save Elhokar) or is it just written with the assumption we as readers must agree (Jasnah murders her political rivals). Does it portray the decision as something done in a moment of passion (Adolin murders Sadeas, which felt like a well written expression of passion from Adolin)? Does it portray the action as morally gray (Jasnah's belief that they must kill the parshmen to avoid the Desolation)? I might or might not agree with the conclusion the characters or the author makes, but if it's well written that doesn't matter. My issue is that over time, the series removes moral complexity. That was my point in my original post - I think Sanderson's writing especially in Books 3 and 4 is kind of a mirror to the US culture of hyper partisanship: you're either for us and completely, wholeheartedly and actively support everything we believe or you must be evil. I think he actually slightly course corrects in WaT in scenes like Jasnah losing her debate with Odium and to a lesser extent giving Nale one or two good arguments. I'm not a huge fan of Dan Wells personally. I know he wrote that serial killer series, haven't read it but just was never a huge fan of his ideas on things like the Writing Excuses podcast. Not any of my business of course, but I'd rather not have him involved in Stormlight. I think you and I have totally different readings of Kelsier. But, I'll also say I haven't read the original Mistborn trilogy in a long time and my feelings toward him are colored a lot more by what I remember of his actions in Secret History and Era 2. Honestly, I don't really see myself rereading Mistborn. For me, the last several cosmere books Sanderson released have just not hit for me. Probably the last cosmere novel that really hit for me was Bands of Morning and the last novel at all that hit was Skyward. Honorable mention to Frugal Wizard. I just don't get that joy from reading Sanderson anymore. I honestly wonder if I've just grown out of liking his books. Hopefully Mistborn Era 3 will rekindle the fire but I'm not holding my breath.

Here I am again replying a month later, haha. Decided to check the site again and saw your reply. In terms of the simple vs complex questions - I understand where you're going with that. I do agree with what you're saying, but it wasn't really the point I was making. We don't have to keep rehashing the question of whether the parshendi are right or wrong. But new ethical questions do come up as the story progresses. They are just handled with much less complexity. The examples I'm thinking of are Jasnah's murder of her political rivals - could have been interesting and introduced complexity in the story, or could have just simply not been really addressed at all (some throwaway paragraph "Sadeas' sworn highlords wandered off into the Shattered Plains, never heard from again."). Instead we got "It's ok for Jasnah to murder her political rivals because she's cool and smart." I will say that the scenes with Queen Fen and the debate were finally a payoff for that, which was really satisfying. In terms of Sanderson telling the story - I see where you're going there too but I think we're talking a little bit different things. Mistborn The Final Empire isn't really grimdark, it's a story of hope. Early Sanderson was all about telling the story of how hope and determination could overcome all odds. It was about how even people who were at their absolute lowest and who had been terribly abused could pick themselves up and save humanity. The Glen Cook/grimdark story would be The Lord Ruler's rise to power and how someone can learn to survive in that terrible environment. That's the kind of story Sanderson has said himself, he just can't tell. It doesn't work for him. I can't explain it, but if you're right and his aim was to tell the story of a losing war (and I think you probably are right) he just totally missed on the tone. I don't know how to describe it, but there should be a sense of impending doom and inevitable failure. A lot of authors are good at invoking that, but Sanderson just isn't. And maybe it's just my (and probably everyone's?) built up expectations too - we come into a Sanderson book expecting a certain kind of story so we don't feel the tension or fear that things might actually go terribly wrong. We feel like things might be bad for a while, but it won't be that bad and our heroes will figure it out before too long. Anyway - lastly I do want to hit on the Kelsier thing. Kelsier isn't exactly a villain and he was definitely a hero in The Last Empire. But, I think by Mistborn Series 2 he's portrayed as a shady, morally gray individual. He went to the southern continent and messed around with people there, setting himself up as a god and sowing the seeds of conflict against the people that Sazed helped. He started a shadow spy organization, which has questionable motivations and membership. He puts himself at odds with Harmony/Sazed. I don't see Kelsier as an unquestionably good character. Even within The Last Empire he shows that he has major character flaws. He is shown to be someone who is out for himself and his personal glory first and foremost. He dies in a noble act at the end of The Last Empire, but that didn't forgive all past and future sins. I also don't see him as a nationalist or imperialist type, I see him as someone after personal power. He may justify it to himself with the idea that he could use the power to protect Scadrial, but that's not his true motivation and I think as soon as he gets the chance he will show that. He won't be an evil enemy exactly, but he'll become kind of a frenemy type who sometimes helps and sometimes hurts our heroes (including those based on Scadrial). I also think it would have been better for him to have been revealed as the enemy in Mistborn Era 2 because he's a character we know and care about. Having the big bad be some kind of weird fragment of a shard we don't know or care about kind of sucks IMO.

A month later I thought I'd come in and say this is definitely an interesting post. I'm very much someone who felt SA peaked at WoR, dipped a bit with Oathbringer, and fell off a cliff in RoW. I don't think that book 3-5 are more complex than books 1-2. In fact, I'd argue they are more simplistic especially in terms of how debates and discussions are handled. You said it yourself - the first books asked a lot of interesting questions such as "Do the Parshendi deserve to win?" In the earlier books we had our heroes taking different sides in arguments. Even villains like Taravangian had a kind of twisted logic that made you almost want to agree with them. That to me is complexity. By the time we get to the later books, those kinds of questions are no longer being asked (with a few limited exceptions) - the lines in the sand are drawn and there's no more room to question things. Probably a reflection of the unfortunately polarized times we live in during the release window of these last two books. But that wasn't what interested me about your post. The idea that the last 3 books, or even maybe the series as a whole is telling the story of a losing war is what is really interesting. It's not something I'd thought about, but does make sense. I don't think the story of a losing war is something that's in Sanderson's DNA to tell. Were this someone like Glen Cook, Joe Abercrombie, etc - they could tell the story of a losing war where everything is just getting worse and we'd really feel it. The story where everything is so bad and ruined, our heroes have to sacrifice themselves just to make it so people can keep on living at all in the burned out husk of the world. But with Sanderson, he can't really tell that kind of story. He's said it himself - he's tried the grimdark thing in the past and it just doesn't work for him. So SA doesn't come off that way - it comes off as a typical Sanderson story where the heroes come back and win despite overwhelming odds. Which, I like. But like you said, especially RoW and WaT are trying to tell a bit of a darker story and their problem is that we already started the series with really dark stories in Kaladin and Shallan's origins. I think you're spot on that Sanderson has a structural issue in that early in the book we had our heroes facing really dark stuff, but coming out of it hopeful and making progress toward getting better. In later books, how do you get dark again when they've already made a lot of progress getting better? Especially starting in RoW what Sanderson may have meant to be a darker tone shift came across to me and I think many others as preaching about mental health. I do also want to say, I totally agree with you in terms of broader story implications too. The end of WaT sets us up for potentially interesting stories going forward. The whole contest of champions thing was so contrived and lame, it felt completely pointless since there was no real way to win - so the idea of finding a way to break the cycle is awesome. Also finally expanding the real story into including the shards as a group is a needed step, so I was glad to see it. I honestly wouldn't have minded casting Kelsier as a villain though - seems more fun and engaging than the villain we did get in MB Era 2.

It's not as serious as all that - appreciate the reply and happy debating!

I think it's fair to disagree with my conclusion but I don't think you can say "it's not supported by the text." That implies it's completely wrong and just something I like to imagine despite evidence to the contrary. It's not explicitly written in the text - I'm not arguing that it is. But, my interpretation is definitely supported by the text. There are plenty of things written in WoK and WoR which a reasonable person would interpret the same way I did. Adolin's personality definitely makes it reasonable to believe he would sneak off and have sex with one or more of his suitors. He doesn't have to be "sex first" to have sex with one of dozens of women who throw themselves at him over a period of multiple years. He would have to be pretty much asexual or have strong religious or other moral convictions not to. We know he isn't asexual nor does he hold strong moral convictions at the time of WoK - so it's reasonable to think he did. Your position is also supported by the text - the text never says he did have sex with anyone. It's completely silent on the issue - which is Sanderson's typical writing style when it comes to sex especially in his earlier books. Unless Sanderson ever provides an explicit WOB, it's all just speculation. That's the whole point of this discussion - I'm telling you what I think and you tell me what you think. Maybe one of us changes the other's mind but probably not and that's fine. But you have no more standing than I do. Virgin Adolin is just as much a headcanon as sexually active Adolin.

I mean - in similar real world societies with similar courtship rituals people found a way. Adolin was never much of rule follower. I don't think he was having sex with each and every one of the women, but to me it was implied he'd probably done it a few times. Not in a predatory way, just in the way that most teenagers want to have sex and he would have had the opportunity. I think that Adolin has also changed as a character since WoK - I think if the Adolin of WaT were single he would be super serious about the courtship and only meet with candidates he really thought would work as a match for him and make a serious attempt at marriage.

I think it's best to put the Kal/Ad/Shal love triangle behind us, but I can't resist throwing in my two cents: I think it is slightly too harsh to call Adolin a womanizer, but also - Sanderson's style (especially back then) is to really stay away from talking about sex. I think you could reasonably imply that Adolin had sex with a few of his suitors over the years, based on his behavior. But mostly, he was just a guy doing what most would do in his situation - taking advantage of the fact that he can get any woman he wants whenever he wants. And none catch his eye to make it worth it to him to settle down. I would argue that's even true with Shallan for quite a while - he only goes along with it because he's formally tied down. So, not necessarily a womanizer but not a paragon either. In my opinion, Kaladin did have true feelings for Shallan and did understand her better than Adolin in most areas, prior to their marriage. The one thing he didn't understand was the way she dealt with her trauma because the one thing he wanted (to set down his burdens for a bit) was the thing that was making Shallan worse and worse. I don't think that Adolin somehow saw Shallan better than Kaladin, but in that one area he did understand her better. And then, Kaladin chose to move on after Shallan and Adolin got married. I do think that in RoW, Adolin and Shallan got some real romance scenes that made it feel like they'd grown into their relationship. I bought it at that point. So my view - Shallan and Kaladin were a better match as the characters were in WoR, but Shallan changed in Oathbringer so they were not a good match anymore. And then by RoW, Adolin came to truly care about her and they developed a real relationship.

That is Adolin's opinion - which I disagree with. If you look at the paragraph above the one you quoted, he himself says it's likely foolish semantics which Radiants would disagree with. (In that sense, I'll give Sanderson credit for flagging this idea as something that is not an absolute truth, which addresses my argument in terms of the moral of the story.) There is no reason an Oath couldn't do all the exact same things he says, and there's no reason a promise must do those things (in other words, a promise can be held just as strictly as an oath). If you make an oath to me that you'll do something that is important to me and then you don't do it, I'm going to be upset with you. If you call that commitment a promise instead, I'm going to feel the exact same way if you don't follow through. I think it's cool that Adolin and the deadeyes get to do something cool like this, but all this oath/promise stuff was really lame for multiple reasons we already discussed. Interesting - I forgot about that scene. I do wonder if it will mean anything. She might be the one to find him before others considering where she is at the end of WaT.

I can understand where you are coming from - but I think you are looking at something different from what I am looking at. If you narrowly define an Oath as only the magical binding element of the Nahel bond which allows a Radiant to use Honor's powers, then sure. In my mind, I view an oath as much broader - primarily the moral/ethical content of what you are promising to do. Adolin's argument is that people should not make commitments about what they will do or what values they will live their life by because it is too restricting and puts stress on the person to live up to their commitment. He explicitly says he did not want to become a Radiant because he felt living up to the Radiant oaths was too restrictive. He's essentially saying he believes in promises rather than oaths because it's less bad to break a promise and therefore it's not as restricting. I don't agree with that - in my opinion it's equally bad to break either. He (and I think you?) also implies that you can still fulfill a promise after breaking it, but not an oath. I don't agree with that - I think you can return to either a promise or an oath after breaking it. Kaladin even returns to his Radiant/Nahel Bond Oaths after breaking them. I think the deadeyes come back to help Adolin in WaT because they are still honoring the spirit of their oaths. The oaths the deadeye spren made were to provide power to the followers of Honor if they prove themselves worthy. That is exactly what they are doing in the end of WaT, just in a different way than before. So, I would argue that they still feel bound by their Oath and want to fulfill it in the ways they can. We don't know if they made any promises separate from their Oath, all we know is that they have come back to do something similar to their original oath.

I do agree with that message and fully support it and I think all the things you listed were genuinely good. Rather than "surrender" I might put it as "accepting defeat" or "knowing when to move on" but it's the same thing. I think it was one message of the book, for sure. And maybe, my brain went to the things that bothered me about the book first and I underemphasized the positives. At some point I will reread this book and when I think those themes will come out more strongly. The second major message of the book (the one I dislike), in keeping with the increased prominence of mental health advocacy, was essentially "Reject your moral values and tear down societal values if it will make you happier." Having been to therapy myself, I accept that this is a real question we should be asking ourselves - is it better to uphold your personal ethics and feel like you are doing the right thing, or modify or reject your values in order to live a life that might be more fulfilling in other areas. I think my issue boils down to the fact that I believe that a major message of the book is that if societal norms don't work for a small number of people, then we must completely tear down those norms. For example - Adolin's declaration about oaths. They work for the vast majority of Knights Radiant and did so for a long time, but they did not work for some others. Adolin's solution (and the book implies we should think this is the right solution) is to reject all oaths. I think the WoR-era message for the same situation would have been "we need to fix the oaths to better address edge cases, and respect those who choose not to adopt them or those who try their best but struggle to live up to them. but most people should take them, because they really do work well the vast majority of the time." I would also say because a few people did bring it up in this thread - I have absolutely zero issue with any of the individuals who rejected their oaths. I agree that all of them (Dalinar, Szeth, Sigzil) did so in ways that made sense with their character and for valid reasons. Showing people rejecting their oaths is not a problem. A message that taking oaths just for the sake of taking oaths is not good is also not a problem. Taking the oaths represents following time tested values and social norms. What is a problem for me is that through Adolin, the book is giving us the message that the right thing to do is completely reject the idea of taking oaths because they don't work for some people or some situations. Or, metaphorically, that we should reject mainstream societal values and norms and live in a society where everyone just does what they want. I disagree with that message. We as humans do better when there are norms (most of us anyway). No matter what we do, we can't help everyone all the time. We can only do the best we can for the most people. Instead of walking away from thousands of years of lessons about what works to create a good society, we should keep those lessons but adapt them gradually to better fit our time and our circumstances. Anyway, that's my own moralistic sermon

I realize I'm a bit late to the party but wanted to throw in my two cents here. This debate scene was one of my favorites in the book, and I was surprised to see that a lot of people didn't like it. After reading some of these replies - I think for most people the reason comes down to how much you liked Jasnah prior to this debate. I frankly strongly disliked Jasnah prior to the debate, but by the end of the book I liked her quite a bit. Prior to this debate, Jasnah had portrayed herself as not only a very smart and logic based individual, but also as someone who acts based on cold hard logic. The books mostly seemed to back this up - Jasnah is a super genius who can do no wrong and all her actions are morally justified because she's just smarter than everybody else so she knows the moral arguments and she had to deal with trauma so it's ok for her to go killing people. Many fans also shared that opinion. My personal view on her leading up to this book was that while she was definitely a very smart person she was not omniscient and even the best people make mistakes - I disagreed with many of her stances. I also felt she did a lot of things that were morally questionable and often just full on wrong starting in Way of Kings (baiting people into attempting a minor crime and then murdering them) and continuing on through Oathbringer (her actions with Amaram - though as we learn more those may be justified, her proposal to kill all Parshmen/Parshendi/Singers/Etc) and RoW (murdering her Alethi political opponents). You also have instances where she clearly acts on emotion rather than logic - sometimes positive (Renarin), sometimes negative (Amaram - had she acted based on cool logic and not had an emotional outburst against him, our heroes may have been able to bring him back into the anti-Odium camp, though again her extreme reactions seem likely to be justified in future flashbacks). At the time, I felt Sanderson was portraying all the things I saw as negative as positive and justified. During and after the debate, Sanderson makes it clear we as readers should be viewing Jasnah as an imperfect person just like the rest of the heroes. He shows us that she's smart but not omniscient. He shows us that her moral behaviors are often bad and alienate people who would otherwise be her allies - her behaviors made Fen feel that Odium of all people is more trustworthy. And he shows us that she was clearly not just acting out of pure logic. And Jasnah herself finally takes time to self-reflect and she realizes all these things. She realizes that she needs to change because what she was doing was not self-consistent with her own professed values and more importantly, it's just not a winning strategy. And I also think (while a bit clumsily done) Sanderson was right to separate her personal ethical philosophy from her atheist beliefs. Overall, just one of the best moments in WaT and if Jasnah continues to grow then I really look forward to reading her sections in the back 5 novels. In terms of the actual debate itself - it was a classic philosophy debate about utilitarianism mixed in with practical real-world (ok, book-world) decision-making. I took a few philosophy classes in college so I'm familiar with the basic pro and anti utilitarianism arguments. The truth is that Odium had her beat twice in the debate. First, in pure logic he had her beat. Odium offered Fen a better deal from a utilitarian perspective. In order to beat Odium here she would have had to argue either 1) Odium's not calculating the "utils" right and we need to add more value in the equation to things like the suffering of others - but that's really hard to do and how do you convince someone of that in a 30 minute debate? or 2) Abandon the utilitarian philosophy argument, which would come off as totally insincere and likely turn Fen against her. Second, he had her beat in the practical decision-making front. Both parties demonstrated themselves unreliable - Jasnah and the Alethi in general in that they looked out for themselves first and foremost even after promising very profusely and very recently that they wouldn't. Odium is Odium, I think enough said there. But with Odium, you start off with a better deal and you do at least have the fact that he's bound to the letter of his oaths by magic. You don't have that with Jasnah, she can murder you 5 minutes after the deal is done. And like someone else said, ad hominem is not a fallacy in this context. It's relevant information for making the decision. And let's not forget that Jasnah also engaged in it. Both parties told the truth about the bad deeds each other had done, but Jasnah's problem was that everyone knows Odium is a snake and expects to deal with him in that context. Jasnah was supposed to be trustworthy. Fen learned that Jasnah was not trustworthy - that's a big emotional blow. Ultimately, I think people wanted Jasnah to defeat Odium with the power of pure logic and are upset she wasn't capable of that. For one (as others have said) this is just the start of her arc so narratively it just doesn't make sense for her to have "super logic" already just like Kaladin couldn't win every fight early in his arc (or even later in his arc). But beyond that, I think you have to be really careful with winning by "super logic" as a plot device in general. It is really, really easy to come off as preachy or just logically flawed. I personally think Sanderson would be wise to not have Jasnah's crowning achievement be defeating (insert final big bad here) in a logical debate. I'd like to see her show off her intelligence by wise governing, teaching others, and making society better.

I agree that an ideological shift in the message of the book is not a criticism of the quality of the book, though you could argue it's a valid criticism of the Stormlight Archive as a series. I think there are a lot of fans (but probably not a majority) who really resonated with the Sanderson of 2010 who just don't resonate quite so much with the Sanderson of 2024/2025. Really, it was RoW and Edgedancer when I realized that I'm no longer the target demographic for these books, but I don't need to be and that's neither here nor there. After spending some time thinking about it, I think I would rate WaT above RoW for 4th best Stormlight book. The moralistic preaching got worse in this book, but there were at least a few self aware moments when it came to those topics. I think the overall plot and story for this book was significantly better than RoW.