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.

I agree with you that it was always a theme of the books that the idea of keeping oaths dogmatically was bad. I think by RoW we all suspected something was not right with the Oathpact. We also knew that Nale was keeping his Skybreaker oaths while doing bad things. I think the message of the earlier books was - Oaths are good but they aren't "enough." Someone who keeps the oaths of the knights radiant isn't automatically a good person and a person who doesn't swear oaths can be just as good as someone who does. I think it also shows that good people who are trying their best can fail and there can even be morally good reasons (in rare circumstances) to break oaths. Where I disagree with you is that I feel WaT breaks from the moral theme of the previous books. It changes from "taking oaths is good most of the time, but there are exceptions and you have to do it the right way" to "taking oaths probably isn't a good idea at all, but in rare exceptions a few people can do it" I felt like every major protagonist who interacted with the idea of oaths came to that conclusion. I get where he's coming from here - people can really mess with their own mental health by holding themselves to impossible standards and we really need to be able to let go of those things when they're unhealthy. And I think that's Sanderson's intended message with the book. As someone else mentioned - early books in the series dealt with the idea of building up personal character and virtues (while still understanding that we need to be kind to ourselves and that society's expectations aren't always a good guide for what is right). Later books in the series reversed the order - prioritize your own mental well being even (or perhaps especially) if it means discarding your previous moral convictions, but still try to have personal character and virtue as well. The first message resonates better with me (and the overall culture at least in the US of 2010 when WoK was released) while the second message resonates better with the culture of the US of 2025. IMO - both have their merits but one fits me better than the other.

I think we got a bit off topic here - but I thought I'd chime in a bit about what I think was the original topic of this thread: Was this book a renunciation of the themes of Oathbringer and is Dalinar dodging responsibility in his move of letting go of the Honor shard? Part 1: I don't know about Oathbringer in particular, but if we're talking about the series as a whole, then I believe the answer is yes. The theme of the books so far had been that oaths are meaningful and that there is a lot of moral value in sticking to your oaths/promises even when it doesn't make sense. For example - keeping a promise even when doing so is hurtful to you in some way, or the cost outweighs the benefit of keeping the promise. This is more of an old school ethical/moral philosophy. The earlier books in the series I think also gave a little more nuance to the idea that keeping oaths is good - they imply that the content and intent behind the oath must be good (even if the Shard of Honor doesn't care, it's clear that pretty much everyone else does). When we get to WaT, the message seems to change. Rather than the idea that holding to your word and keeping oaths being a good thing in and of itself, we are given the message that it is really not a good thing to even make those kinds of promises. We see that through two of the main arcs - Kaladin with the way he continually tries to convince Szeth that he should not keep his promises, and Adolin with his Oath/Promise speech. I thought both were a bit distasteful. Kaladin was disrespecting Szeth's moral values and personal ethics - Szeth believed that following the law was important because it represented an objective standard even if it is flawed, and Kaladin was not willing to accept that and told Szeth he must abandon his own values because Kaladin knew better. To Sanderson's (partial) credit, he had Nale give what I thought was a really good response to Kaladin, though he also undermined it by having Kaladin claim Nale was talking crazy. On Adolin - in my view it's self-delusion and rationalization. Adolin makes a big speech about promises vs oaths and tries to create a distinction when there really is not one. His main argument seems to be that people will understand if you break a promise, so it's ok to break them but that an oath is not OK to break. I disagree - a promise or an oath are the same thing - making a commitment to do something. If you make an important promise or oath and then fail to live up to it, it's not OK. Calling it one or the other has no meaning. In both cases, you need to give yourself some grace (and forgiveness to others if you are the injured party) if you try your best but still fail or be able to have open and honest discussions about changes if circumstances change. It comes off as a way to rationalize that it's OK to break promises. I feel like this adds up to a changing moral/ethical theme for the book. I liked the old message, but I don't love the new one. Part 2: Is Dalinar refusing to take responsibility for his own failures and/or is the book saying its OK for him to avoid responsibility? No, not in my opinion. He is continually looking for ways to create a permanent solution to the problem of Odium on Roshar. His plan at the start of WaT is to take up the shard of Honor in hopes of using its power to defeat Odium in "single combat." He learns throughout the course of the book that this isn't practical because even if he wins he would destroy Roshar. The culmination of the book is him realizing that his original goal just will not work and he needs to find a new way. He sacrifices himself to send out a message to get help for Roshar from the only people who can help - other Shards. I don't think it's a lack of responsibility to call for help when you recognize you aren't capable of the job. And you can't say he did not pay the price - he willingly sacrificed his own life to give Roshar a chance at a better future and to try to avoid perpetuating war. I think you can debate all day about a lot of things such as whether or not he was right that he couldn't have won a long war of attrition with Odium, but I think the author's intent is to convey to us as readers that Dalinar could not have won had he taken up Honor. I personally thought the message of Dalinar's actions was to force the people who took the Shards to take responsibility for their own actions rather than force their problems on people like Dalinar and the Rosharans. Ultimately, it was Hoid & Pals who shattered Adonalsium and sent Odium out into the world to wreak havoc. If we're going to use analogies - it would be like saying Dalinar is the environmental manager at a factory who is responsible to clean up any spills so that his factory doesn't pollute the local water supply. He works nonstop but he just can't keep ahead of the spills and he's worried that it's only getting worse. He then realizes that the CEO of the company decided to buy faulty equipment and knows about the pollution issue and will not offer any resources to fix it. So after trying everything through the proper channels and getting nowhere, he sacrifices his career by becoming a whistleblower to the authorities and forcing the company to act.

I think this #2 is really representative of the wider problem. And someone else said up thread too - it's almost like the book has become some kind of museum (archive? ha) of various mental health issues. Why did Renarin need to have autism? Couldn't he have just been a neurotypical individual who is smart, shy, and withdrawn? We as readers could speculate - maybe he's somewhere on the spectrum and Sanderson might in his own mind have an answer to that question. Maybe I'm totally ignorant to these things - but I felt that the introduction of his sexuality also came out of nowhere. And having a scene with Shallan fangirling over Renarin and Rlain getting together just feels excessive. It's all just way too on the nose - it feels like fan service for group of fans that I'm just not a part of. Totally agree - this would have absolutely been the right way to handle this if that's where Sanderson wanted the story to go. No hamfisted "I'm your therapist." Just - I'm a dude who is trying to help you out because I care about you and our mission. Dalinar sends Kaladin because he knows Kaladin struggled with his own depression and suspects he can help Szeth and maybe (if he's lucky) the Heralds. In my opinion, for Dalinar to make the mission explicitly about Kaladin giving therapy to Ishar was also really on the nose. Rather than phrasing it as "Your mission is to fix his mental health", it would have come across way better as "See what is wrong with the Heralds, try to bring them over to our side." Most of what happened could have been the same and still leaned in a direction toward promoting mental health awareness, the importance of therapy, etc, but framed better in a fantasy story and less on the nose. And - if we don't specifically call Kaladin a "therapist" it doesn't draw those direct comparisons to a real life profession. It keeps us firmly in the real of a fantasy novel where we can understand that the depiction of mental health and its treatment is not going to be entirely accurate. I hope this is just Sanderson writing faster and not having the time for nuance. But I'm honestly not so sure. I think that he has just shifted his tastes and style in a direction that I don't personally enjoy. WaT is the first mainline Sanderson book I didn't buy immediately on release and I'm still only about 75% done. It is still a really good book, for all its faults. But the trend is moving away from my tastes. Maybe it's just me getting older.

I kind of agree and disagree with this. I actually thought that segment you quoted was fairly well handled(ish). Navani is a scholar who knows about Ashyn and the human history and feels this is important and Hoid just blows her off which is totally in character. And also this whole Ashyn thing is mostly meaningless at this point - nice to know if you're an in world historian character, but not too important to the story. What I think kind of sucks (and what I think the OP was getting at) is that Sanderson is name dropping so much stuff now that is even actually kind of irrelevant to the main story and only matters if you're someone who is trying to piece together all the random bits and pieces of the wider cosmere. The Autonomy mention for example - for Wax it's kind of like ok? What is Autonomy? Why should I care about it? At a more meta level - Why does the enemy need to be Autonomy? Wouldn't it be better if it was just some random faction on Scadrial? Heck, a rogue branch of the Ghostbloods could have been a good enemy. It probably would have meant more to Scadrial and the characters we know in the Mistborn series and would tie in with the idea that some of the Rosharan Ghostbloods are going semi-rogue, it would have been personal to Kelsier, Wayne, and Sazed/Harmony. It being some random chunk of Autonomy feels kind of lame because we just don't know anything about Autonomy, unless what you care more about is the story of the shards. I saw an article today where Sanderson mentioned that in the second half WaT, shards start becoming very active. I think if you're going to be doing all this cosmere easter egg stuff, you have to go this route. Get these shards on screen so they are actors and characters that we know and understand their motivations and care about them as characters. Because otherwise name dropping them mostly just distracts from the actual story that is being told in the book. Make them real, tangible, enemies or allies of our heroes rather than just being used as glimpses of Cosmere lore for those who are hyper tuned in.

I think you're both right and wrong here. Right in that I think a theme of the series will be understanding that locking in commitments just for the sake of locking them in is not a good thing in and of itself. There are a lot of examples we see in the books of how Honor and its concept of sticking to commitments and oaths can be a bad thing and like you said the Heralds' predicament and Honor's lack of understanding about is the prime example. Szeth's main arc which the story should be focused around also fits - he murdered dozens of people just because he felt his honor required him to do it and now he is punishing himself for those crimes because he also feels like his honor requires him to view himself as a terrible person. So it's being set up to be a major theme of this book I think. We will also probably learn the secret of why Honor shattered and I think it has something to do with this theme. But - I don't think that the segment you quoted is implying that Odium+Cultivation=Freedom. I don't know/remember the wider context of this quote, but it reads to me more like Venli being tempted to just run off and ignore everything else going on. Like a sinister type of freedom - you can go off and be free for a while until the world burns down around you kind of thing. Conceptually too - I don't think that works (Cultivation + Odium). Cultivation is the concept of growing, improving, and changing. Positive (developing others to reach their full potential) and Negative (scheming to make others growth in a direction that serves your own personal ambitions). Odium calls himself Passion but I think he's been more accurately described in the series as a god's sense of divine wrath - the part of a monotheistic god that considers itself above all others and demands complete respect and obedience and is willing to destroy entire nations if they don't comply. This is implied to be the reason why Odium wants to destroy all other shards (both Rayse and Taravangium) because its fundamental nature is to feel it can be the only one. I think if Cultivation and Odium were to merge (which is probably very difficult considering the nature of Odium is to not want to merge) then the result would not be freedom, but tyranny. It might create a shard named "Control" or something like that - developing people but only in the very specific path that serves itself and not caring about the results for others.

Definitely a fair take - and I do agree that everything stemming from the Stormfather kind of having trauma from Gavilar is a cool idea. My personal thought on "Stormfaker" was that it might have been a totally new player - setting up something for the plot of the back 5 Stormlight Archive novels. Like, this prologue is the first hints to us that there's a third party involved here who has been manipulating events and tricking our heroes and even Gavilar. I was definitely not on team "It's Ishar" because that seems really boring. I'm still wondering what the plot will be for the "Back 5" and how WaT will resolve the story but also leave enough left that there will be a reason to come back from SA6. But - I think we can be pretty sure it's not "Stormfaker."

I don't really think "Stormfaker" is the best example of the way out there theories we've seen here. It did actually make a lot of sense stylistically - and it was obvious something was wrong with how the Stormfather was behaving so it made sense to talk about it. What didn't make a lot of sense was people trying to get super deep into figuring out precisely who it was or could have been and how they did it based on a lot of weird ideas they had about various capabilities of different characters and how they can speak in someone's head. If Sanderson wanted someone to be able to fake like they were the Stormfather, there are a million ways he could have done it - he wouldn't need to limit himself to the precise ways of "head-talking" that fans think are available. Having a "Stormfaker" being a previously unknown character or a character we know little about also could have happened very easily. The whole idea fit with common Sanderson themes (our heroes are being misled similar to the Ruin/Preservation dynamic with false/edited prophecies being strategically placed to make our heroes do the wrong thing, etc). You read that prologue and think "Something's not right here. What's going on with the Stormfather?" and it makes perfect narrative and logical sense to think that something magical could be going on including someone potentially impersonating or otherwise influencing him. That said, we know the theory was wrong at this point. But it definitely felt like it could have fit with how erratic the Stormfather was acting in the SA5 prologue. Honestly, while the Chanarach theory might be correct (and I understand it's seeming more likely these days that it is correct), I think it's way more crackpot than Stormfaker. There's no real reason to suspect that Shallan's mother is/was Chanarach, it all started as someone digging into minor details and doing a huge amount of speculation and drawing a bunch of unsupported conclusions. And, add in a bunch of also wild speculation regarding things like Shallan's shardblade, etc that are lumped in with the theory and just don't seem to be rooted in any kind of logic, and it just gets too out there for me. If your only goal is to say "Is there anything in the book that says this couldn't possibly have happened" then sure, it passes the logic test. But if your goal is to say "Is there any reason to think that Shallan's mother was a herald?" then no, it does not pass the logic test. To get there logically you have to take three premises: 1) Taln didn't break (Solid/Reasonable) 2) The fused must have been released because another herald died, went to Braise, and broke (Shaky - Other plausible reasons that the desolation started could have been a general weakening of the Oathpact over time due to 9 of the heralds breaking their obligations for 4000 years, or a herald finding themself in Braise or otherwise captured by the forces of Odium by other means such as their experimentations with Gavilar) and 3) The herald that died must have died on screen (Extremely shaky - assumes 2 must have been true and also that we had to see the death on screen). That would get you searching for on screen deaths in mysterious circumstances, and then Shallan's mother becomes the best fit. It feels bad logically, and worse narratively for me. Why shoehorn a herald into Shallan's childhood? Feels bad - the story of her childhood trauma is such a great story as a purely human tragedy. Why ruin it? Anyway, TL;DR I'll take 10 Stormfaker-style theories where noticeably unusual things are happening on the page and people are throwing out ideas about why that is over a Chanarach-style theory where someone is microanalyzing WOBs and trying to pull meaning out of every comma placement. Stormfaker is fun even though it's wrong, Chanarach (if it does prove correct) is going to inspire more over analyzing and basically making up meanings that just don't exist (even if they actually turn out to be right 1 in 100 times). It's always fun to see what other people are thinking, but the Chanarach-style theories just are not for me.

True - I also think that the Stormfather has changed over time based on his bond with Dalinar. So it might be that based on who/what he was then, he didn't have the freedom to make that choice, but now he does. But, it could also be that it was always a "don't want to" and not a "can't."

I wouldn't say that - his goal is to become the sole god of the Cosmere but not necessarily dominate it. Well - not in the conquer by force method anyway. I think that if Taravangian himself keeps control he would eliminate and likely absorb the other Gods/shards with minimal collateral damage and then enforce some type of lasting peace. He says it in the Interlude - he wants to create a Cosmere where only the minimum amount of free will is allowed so he can prevent people from being exploited or hurt, etc. So, I guess that is domination in a sense. But I think it's a significantly different path from Rayse who just wanted to kill everyone and shatter all the other shards so he could remain pure and uninfluenced by the other shards. Taravangian has always been one of the most interesting characters in the series so I hope he sticks around and continues to be a complex and interesting Odium.

Yeah - I would also say that it may be that the Stormfather is bound by his nature or some agreement, etc that he will not show more to Dalinar. I think we also have to keep that last part in context of the first part. "I can show you no more" does not necessarily mean "I literally do not have the capability to show you anything more." In the context of "I've shown you all that was created for you to see" it could imply "There is something more I have the capability to show you, but Honor commanded me not to so I won't." At least for me - I don't think the Stormfather is being suspicious or malicious in holding this information back. I think it's something that without context and more knowledge from Dalinar, could be misleading and cause major problems. It's Cultivation's nature to manipulate people by withholding (or granting) information to get them to do what she wants. I think she's intentionally trying to stir up chaos here because her plan to create a tame Odium failed. Cultivation is way more suspicious to me than the Stormfather.