agrabes

Jumping into this a bit late - I was disappointed but not completely surprised in Gavilar's status in the SA5 prologue.  I think this was heavily foreshadowed in the Navani prologue.  I'm a little disappointed because I feel like the fact that Gavilar was actually a pretty bad guy who was selfish and could never have really achieved anything is a bit of a tired trope.  When Sanderson was originally plotting this out back in the 00's it would have subverted the way most fantasy would have handled things.  In 2002 mainstream fantasy Gavilar would have been a philosopher king who conquered the world by the power of his wisdom who died by an evil betrayer, so it would have been interesting for him to turn out to be kind of a crappy guy.  In 2022 we expect there to be a reveal that Gavilar is rotten on the inside.  For me, it fell flat. 

I think what bothers me about it is that it doesn't feel very "Sanderson."  Sanderson's biggest themes have always been about seeing the best in people, even if others doubt them.  It's about how you should give people a chance even if they seem bad, because they can't change if you don't give them a chance.  It felt right for Sadeas to be punished because he'd been built up from day one as a bad guy and he was given a chance to redeem himself, which he chose not to take.  This Gavilar plot from ROW and the SA5 prologue feels like it's about taking a guy who seems to us like he has definitely done some good and some bad in his life and telling us "Hey - this guy is a terrible person you all need to hate if you want to be a decent person."  It feels bad.  I do think Sanderson intended us to slowly piece together that we'd been seeing Gavilar through Dalinar's rose colored glasses and he was never quite as noble as Dalinar thought.  I don't mind the concept, it just feels off for some reason.  I think maybe it would have been better if we saw Dalinar figure it out first and then had it confirmed in the Gavilar POV prologue?

I didn't come to like Sanderson because his writing showed people getting what was coming to them - I liked Sanderson because his stories were about people overcoming bad circumstances and lifting themselves up.  He very rarely cast people as irredeemable or purely bad.  I would have rather seen that at heart Gavilar was doing all these things for what he thought was a good reason and not just selfishness and lust for power.  Or maybe a moment of reflection at the end where he thinks to himself that he lost his way and regretted the person he had become late in his life.

Not a huge fan of this news personally.  I'm not particularly a fan of Wells and have avoided Intentionally Blank because of that.  That said, I don't need to read any books he co-authors.  Or, maybe I'll come around someday.

I personally think Kelsier gets too positive of a rep in fandom.  I think Sanderson has been pretty clear that Kelsier is an egomaniacal person who only did things we would consider "good" to bring glorification to himself and serve his own personal desires.

The easy comparison is The Lord Ruler, who is a great foil for Kelsier.  While Kelsier did good things for bad motives, The Lord Ruler did bad things for good motives.  Kelsier was clever enough to understand that the best way to achieve his personal revenge and glorification was to build up a popular uprising around himself.  He was not particularly motivated by improving the life of the skaa (though he did say that he was) because he frequently took actions which made life worse for them.  On the other hand, The Lord Ruler was dumb and thought that the only way he could save the world was to lock it down and use draconian policies to force people to act in the way he wanted.  He was not a good person either because he allowed and even encouraged evil things. 

I think what we'll see from Kelsier in future cosmere books is to make it even more clear that Kelsier is only out for himself.  We'll see clearly on screen that everything he has done is for his own personal advancement.  I don't think he'll necessarily be a villain - we'll see him as a neutral third party in context of whatever the great struggle of the cosmere turns out to be.  He will at times be at odds with our heroes whenever their interests come in conflict with his.  We've already been seeing this so far from "Thaidakar" in SA4.

6 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think this really is a conflating of two meanings of 'nation'.

In the way it's used when talking about many societies that didn't use the Westphalian sovereignty concept (eg the term 'First Nations') Germany (or, really, 'the German people') was (were) 'a nation' (a distinct people-group defined by shared language & culture). And that would be true whether it was broken into 20 separate states, unified as one, or existed under a larger empire.

In the Westphalian sovereignty sense, each state was a separate nation (nation-state).

Post 20th century we tend to assume the two are the same, and where they aren't that's an anomaly/problem. But that's a pretty modern view & wouldn't exist on Roshar. (It clearly doesn't, given the way Alethkar pre unification is discussed, and the whole thing with Azir kind of but not really having other kingdoms under it).

I think you are getting caught up too much in the word "nation."  I'm not going to argue on the changing and/or varying meaning of nation because frankly I just don't know enough about it to make a compelling argument.  All I'll say is that assuming your definition is technically correct, it's still not the way most people think of the word.  In plain language there was no nation of "Germany" prior to Bismarck - only various small central European states populated by ethnic Germans.

At a base level - the point we are talking about here is the government of the Alethi Princedoms prior to being unified by Gavilar.  Whether you want to call them nations, city-states, principalities, or any other name, what is clear is that they were not sub-units of a larger governmental unit with one centralized ruling structure.  They were also not individual governments that were nominally subordinate to a single ruler even if in practice that ruler generally had little practical control.  They were 10 separate governmental units who operated autonomously from each other.  Sometimes they chose to ally, other times they chose to be enemies.  The form of government both before and after unification was monarchy/aristocracy.  A hereditary autocratic ruler, with subordinate leaders holding power granted by hereditary titles whose high status are also drawn from genetic ties to the ruling family and/or "royal" decree elevating their status if they don't have blood ties.

Now if you were to go back to the Heirocracy, things change again but that's something else.

On 6/22/2022 at 9:14 AM, Tower said:

Ok I am kind of shooting from the hip but these are my Contest of Champions predictions (again spoilers in case I’m right and ruin SA5):

1. Adolin will be Odium’s champion. Reread the scene of him killing Sadeas and tell me he can’t be swayed to Odium with the right push, quickly. Plus, Shallan is going to be a worldhopper and that moves forward a lot easier without her husband.

2. Ba-Ado-Mishram is going to be a factor in Adolin becoming Odium’s champion, maybe some cleverly selective info from Taravodium to manipulate his desire to restore Maya. I’m not sure on this but the info we have so far aligns BAM’s imprisonment with Maya’s potential restoration, and that would be very interesting to look at from Adolin’s prespective and anyone who knows about Maya (and who knows how many beings will have heard about the trial).

3. Dalinar will beat, but refuse to kill, Adolin and ultimately break the terms of the contest of champions and end up releasing Odium from the Rosharan system. We know there’s a greater war shaping up and Odium leaving Roshar works better in SA5 than SA10. Also, we have mention of men in gold and red outside of Roshar and Brandon has said those colors are the motif of Odium. It’s also something where we could see Dalinar questioning if some oaths are/should be more important than others.

4. Adolin is going to be removed from the main cast. I like the idea of him becoming a Fused more because of the ramifications that would have on the rest of the cast, particularly Shallan and Renarin (Shallan of course becoming a worldhopper, but Renarin in terms of defining corruption versus enlightenment).

5. BAM’s imprisonment might have been damaging to Roshar, but her release will set her up to be a (maybe inadvertent) big bad in the back 5. I don’t know, I’m just getting some previous cosmere book vibes and a greater war needs a drill sergeant on a certain Shard’s designated training ground.

I’m probably wrong, but this makes the most sense to me with the info available. There’s plenty of clues, but Adolin’s corruption also serves foreshadowing for other characters too.

 

Like your ideas, even if I don't think they're likely it would be an interesting story!  Here are my predictions:

1) Dalinar chooses to be his own champion, as expected.  A big part of the drama for the first 2/3 of the book is in who will become Odium's champion.

2) Adolin/Shallan plotline is largely focused on Ba-Ado-Mishram, but also in the interaction with the Ghostbloods.  Their plotline will be the one that looks outward into the Cosmere.  They  will arrive only just in time for the Contest of Champions.  Their plot will keep them (or return them?) to the Cognitive Realm.

3) Kaladin and Szeth go to Shinovar and we will get some kind of revelation as to what the Shin have been up to.  Szeth makes progress and swears the 5th Ideal.

4) Kaladin attempts to "heal" Ishar of his madness.  This fails - teaching Kaladin that not every problem can be solved and that in some cases it's better not to try because he can't literally do everything and save everyone all the time.  Ishar continues his insanity but does not pose a threat to the immediate issue - the contest of champions - so Kaladin and Szeth leave.  Kaladin starts to better learn what it means to be a leader, especially a higher level leader (he has to trust his subordinates to make good decisions without his direct guidance and generally shouldn't enter the battle directly himself) which allows him to swear his 5th Ideal, which gains him additonal powers to "buff" allies in some way.

5) Nale is selected as Odium's champion.  He defeats and kills Dalinar in a straight up battle, leading to Dalinar becoming a fused.  Nale decides independently from Odium that he is now obligated to purge Roshar of humans since he sided with the Singers and he begins a violent crusade which doesn't violate Odium's deal since Nale is acting on his own.  This happens at about the 2/3 point in the book.

5.5) One of Nale's first acts is to punish Adolin for his murder of Sadeas.  He sees Dalinar/Jasnah's lack of action on that crime as particularly loathsome, a perversion of justice to let his son go without punishment.  He tries to kill Adolin, but Adolin escapes into the cognitive realm and becomes a worldhopper, knowing Nale can't follow.

6) Since this is Szeth's book - he is the one who faces down with Nale in a battle of 5th Ideal Skybreakers to determine what is truly required by the law.  Kaladin helps by buffing Szeth.

7) Simultaneous with the Nale/Szeth battle, Moash arrives and has a final showdown with Kaladin.  Kaladin has to fight at a disadvantage because he's committed a lot of his power to help Szeth.

8) Szeth defeats Nale.  As Nale is dying, he tells Szeth that this is what he brought him back to life to do - to stop him from becoming too hard hearted and dogmatic.  Nale dies for real (somehow).

9) Kaladin defeats Moash despite being without a lot of his powers.  He spares Moash, who escapes and is set up as one of the big bads for the back 5 of Stormlight.

I'll be surprised if any of this actually happens, but figured I'd throw my thoughts out there.

I'll just add that in terms of urbanization, even in the west there were a lot of factors.  For example in the early years of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, a lot of the reason you saw people migrate to the cities was that there was only so much land to go around.  If a family has 5 or 10 children, which would have been common for those days especially in a farming family, if you're the youngest kid will you have any land to farm?  You can farm with your parents and siblings, but you don't get a life of your own.  Granted, you might be a serf or peasant who works common land for the local nobility so the concept of your own private land doesn't even exist.  But the point being, you can't just start your own farm on your own land because land is passed down through generations.  So you need to do something else to earn a living.  And for many people, they did various odd jobs like weaving and sewing and making furniture, etc (the OG cottage industry).  But as industrial production began, it was so much cheaper than these locally hand crafted goods that people could no longer earn a living.  And the large rural population could no longer support itself on the land available, so many people left the farms to go in search of a job in the cities.  They had no choice, it was starve or take a terrible factory job.

I think in terms of Scadrial, I see it going very similar to the US today.  Rural areas are dying out.  Family farms are gobbled up by megafarms (which might still be run by a family, but with many employees as well) as the younger generation moves toward more urban areas for job opportunities and to find a romantic partner, etc.  I grew up on a family farm and it's something I've experienced firsthand.  In Scadrial, I'm sure that as technology improved there were fewer people necessary to run the farms and the rural youth got more and more connected with the urban life and started to want the perks that come with it.  It seems simple to me.

I think by the in world standards, either could be considered honorable.  It's clear from Nale's reactions and the fact that Szeth has a high spren that his actions were considered honorable by the ethics of the Skybreakers.  It's also clear that Kaladin is presenting what would be honorable by the ethics of the Windrunners.  

By my personal standards, knowingly murdering people was not honorable regardless of the law.  You can follow the law and still be dishonorable.  If he could say he was accomplishing a greater good by killing (or allowing to die) a few particular individuals, then I think what he did could have been honorable.  But that's actually the opposite of what happened.  He killed these people believing that he was not serving a greater good - aside from when he killed Gavilar he was just following orders from either petty criminals or a man he believed to be evil in Taravangian.  He knew that what he did would cause overall harm to society, touching off wars and chaos.  You can't even argue that Taravangian's plan was actually moral (which I think is at least a real debate) and therefore Szeth's actions were honorable in serving it because Szeth did not agree with Taravangian's plan and probably didn't even know all the details.

I'm a bit late to the party, so I'm sure these theories have already been thoroughly discredited.  But, I loved this prologue.  It made Gavilar's actions and attitude toward the people in his life not sympathetic but understandable.  He's not just an evil caricature that we are supposed to feel good about hating, he's a person with motives and reasons that make sense to him and could be justified in a certain twisted way within the messed up confines of his own mind, but to outside observers it's clear he's crossed into doing really bad things.  Makes him feel like a person.

In terms of the StormFather, I think there is definitely something different with him during this prologue.  My theory while I was reading it was that we know the original Stormfather was merged with the remnants of the Honor shard.  So, could it be that at this time that remnant had partial control of the Stormfather spren?  Sort of a two minds occupying one "body" situation where sometimes the Honor cognitive shadow has control, other times it's the Stormfather spren's "mind"?  This would explain why at times the goal is to restore the Oathpact at all costs, including lying, while at other times the goal seems to be more in line with the Stormfather we see in the series interacting with Dalinar who is just looking for a good Bondsmith candidate and not looking for new Heralds.  Honor's shadow could be considering that the most honorable thing is to honor the Oathpact, justifying things like lying, etc.  Then, with the mystery Herald's death, something snaps in the Shadow and it either dies or loses enough power that it can't take control anymore.

I do also like the idea that sometimes Ishar or some other unknown person is impersonating the Stormfather sometimes too, but haven't read enough of the thread to see if there's a lot of evidence against that by now.

32 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

So the answer to that does actually come up in the WoB I was referring to, so I will post them below and offer a little commentary for why I still posted them in line with your question. But TLDR, Amaram was always meant to be that way since Way of Kings. We just didn't get to see it on screen as much, and since the reaction to Oathbringer, he has walked back his responses a bit for Amaram to still be bad inside, with the outside still being a façade, but it to be a slightly more downward progression over time. 

 

So first, WoB on Brandon's original intent for Amaram being a representation of being all show regarding honorable, rather than actually being:

 

Coachdorax

Did you write Amaram as an opposite of Dalinar or was he simply a bad guy meant to spur Kaladin?

Brandon Sanderson

I meant Amaram to be the representation of the corrupt side of the Alethi. Meaning they are all talk and very little heart. Very little of what they say, to the worst of the Alethi, gets to who they really are. They would rather be known as someone honorable than be actually honorable. And this I consider a major problem with their society, and I needed somebody to represent this. Part of it is, to represent a contrast to Kaladin’s ideals. This belief that lighteyes were these paragons of virtue. But I also needed somebody, you may say an opposite to Dalinar. In a way, he is an opposite to Dalinar, but more he just represents Alethi society. And I did want it to be that he wasn’t just all the way corrupt. When he makes his decision in Book One in the flashbacks, he is making a decision. There is a moment where he is considering. By the time you are seeing him in later books, that decision has taken him down a path that leaves him very far from any sort of redemption. But it was a choice. And he wasn’t just corrupt from the get go. But yeah, he represents what I feel would be bad about Alethi society. A kind of honor society that is more about looking honorable than being.

YouTube Livestream 2 (Jan. 20, 2020)

 

This WoB discusses how Brandon felt there was a gradual descent that really started at the moment with Kaladin, but it wasn't shown due to page constraints. That what he did with Kaladin was the worse thing Amaram ever did, so that Amaram was going down the bad road since at least Way of Kings. Just we didn't get to see it

 

Steeldancer

In Oathbringer, my one big issue with Oathbringer was Amaram's turn. I'm curious why you chose to not hint more at his turn. It felt a little bit out of nowhere. What were your thoughts on Amaram?

Brandon Sanderson

Which turn are you talking about?

Steeldancer

When he turns to Odium's side and he's like, "Okay, now I'm going to consume an Unmade."

Brandon Sanderson

I feel like Amaram was a slow and steady descent. But you didn't get to see viewpoints from him as he was doing it. And what he did to Kaladin was worse than anything he did in Oathbringer, in my mind.

Steeldancer

Why did you choose not to give him viewpoints.

Brandon Sanderson

Too many characters. To many people to give viewpoints to. It was kicked around. I kicked it around for a while. There just wasn't enough.

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

 

Finally, another WoB that show Amaram was initially supposed to be portrayed even worse, but that since publishing Oathbringer, he has started walking back on that. So initially Amaram was intended to be pure monster inside that can finally show his true colors. Since Oathbringer, Brandon has tweaked that a little bit.

 

Oversleep

Two characters who I believe Brandon absolutely butchered in terms of what their setup was and what happened to them.

[...]

Amaram. Suddenly, completely out of left field, Amaram has been talking to Odium, betrayed all he worked and believed in, sides with Odium... And becomes inhuman monster nobody will lose any sleep over getting rid of. Seriously, what the hell? 

Rayse. Similar complaint of setting someone up for one thing then just conveniently cutting out: Rayse. He's been set up, multiple times, in multiple books, by multiple characters, as the Big Bad (or at least close to it).

[...]

And after all that build up of Rayse and what he turned out to be... How am I supposed to believe Taravangian, the newest of the Vessels, is going to be any threat at all?

Brandon Sanderson

While I kind of agree on Amaram, I don't on Rayse--but it's useful for me to read this sort of thing.

The goal with Amaram was to finally let him be the monster on the outside he was on the inside--and so the sequence felt thematically right to me in outlining and writing. Since the publication, though, I've walked back this opinion somewhat. While the sequence works as intended, it's not quite right, and if I were doing the book over I'd try something different.

Footnote: The post Brandon is responding to is much longer than the excerpt here.
General Reddit 2021 (Feb. 25, 2021)

 

 

Thanks - Excellent post!   I do remember reading that first WoB at some point.  And really, I think as far as that one goes, he actually nailed that feeling.  Amaram (to me) does come across as a politician playing realpolitik in tWoK and WoR - someone who carefully weighs doing things that are morally good for everyone on a scale vs. things that gain personal power or power for his country but might be immoral to the "out" group and will do whichever one he thinks gains more value for his citizens.  That can be extremely upsetting to people like Kaladin who want to see their politicians value moral character above all.  It bothered me less, because I saw it in that context - Amaram had a job to do.  And the unfortunate reality is that in real life especially in war time you have to play realpolitik.  Amaram didn't have to do what he did, he could have chosen better.  And clearly, he knew that he chose the immoral option.  But, he knew it would weaken him forever as a politician and that would have negative impacts on his career and by extension the people he ruled.  Being ruthless and amoral in the context of his job is something that makes him a bad person, but not an evil monster in my book.  Up until OB, we never saw him do anything immoral outside the context of either advancing his career or his religious mission.  

That's just how I saw Amaram though, others definitely saw him differently.  I think it's clear Sanderson had a different vision of Amaram in his head at least during the time he was writing OB.

Anyway, appreciate you taking the time to reference those.

Just now, Pathfinder said:

So I totally respect you liked Amaram and felt he was done dirty. To each their own. I am only here to chime in on the party that he genuine was good and tried in the beginning. I have about two or three WoB that support that the "do gooder" was the face Amaram put on for the world. That was not who he really was. If you would like to see the WoB, I will be happy to provide. Now I believe the book also showed this, but I imagine you would disagree on that, and I respect your opinion.

I think I'd heard that before and I don't dispute it.  Sanderson has said he considers Amaram to have always been evil to the core and only putting on a nice face.  So really the question to me is:

Did he originally intend that from the beginning and just write Amaram too sympathetically in tWoK and WoR that gave some of us the wrong impression or did he change his mind at some point during the writing?  Because Sanderson does introduce those bad behaviors in the RoW prologue, so I think it's clear Sanderson's current intent at least since writing OB is that Amaram was always bad. 

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

I see no difference between the two.

He wanted the shards so he took them, he felt bad about it, but he did it, then he went to Odium because he didn't want to feel guilty about it.

The difference is that early in the story he sometimes did bad things but felt bad about it, but most of the time he didn't do bad things because he genuinely didn't want to do bad things.  He was portrayed that way in tWoK and WoR and it made him interesting - that there were rational arguments to be made that he did the right thing in the big picture.  It was an interesting commentary about the challenges of leadership and how someone can trick themself into going astray.  It sounds like you don't see it way and that's fine.  

Starting in OB, his character was retconned to have always been doing bad things and always having bad motivations.  That made him boring and lame and a massive letdown as a character. 

At the end of OB, we do get the part where he says he lost control of himself after realizing he had been wrong all along about his plan to cause the desolation to bring back the Heralds and went to Odium.  And you can say then that his uncharacteristic behavior in OB makes sense in that context.  That much is fine, though a little disappointing.  If he had just changed how he behaved starting in OB after he gets a full dose of Odium, I don't think you'd see a significant number of people feeling like his character got the shaft in OB.  It's the part where the rest of his character is retconned to having always been rotten and evil in all aspects of his life that is lame.  

21 hours ago, Frustration said:

When was he ever nuanced?

He was a nuanced character throughout all of tWoK and WoR.  He was shown as someone who genuinely wanted to, and often did, help people.  He had sincere beliefs about what he should do to make the world a better place.  In the pivotal scene in Kaladin's flashbacks he is shown as struggling significantly with the moral weight of the decision he makes, being convinced by others who were probably under Odium's influence to do what they tell him is noble and he initially thinks would be just giving in to his base instincts.  He even chooses to spare Kaladin's life, knowing that it could get him into trouble.  In tWoK he was very clearly a nuanced character.

Throughout WoR, you also see him struggling with the idea of how highly Dalinar thinks of him.  He doesn't really think he's worthy.  All the way up through the end of WoR, he's portrayed as a character who has goals that are noble, but is willing to cross some (but not all) moral lines to achieve them.  He still has honor, in his own way.  He again commits some immoral acts, but only for what he sees as a higher moral purpose.

Then OB comes along.  He's immediately accused of at minimum repetitive sexual harassment (with worse implied) and the tone of the writing says we as readers are expected to believe the claims are accurate.  Nothing in the way he had behaved up to that point suggested he had done anything like that.  And after that, his character changes completely from morally gray semi-protagonist to mustache twirling evil antagonist.  He does get a small line or two at the end of OB about why he changed.  And I get it - there's just not room in the book for a good and realistic character arc for Amaram to make his character changes feel earned.  At least there is some attempt to explain why and even if it was not satisfying for me personally, it does help.

7 hours ago, Nameless said:

If that was true, then when Dalinar told Kaladin that he had been wrong to dismiss him from duty, Kaladin would have gone "Storms yes you were! I'm gonna grab my spear and get back out onto that battlefield before Sigzil makes the Windrunners too bureaucratic!". Kaladin's arc after KoW will probably involve less stabby-stabby and more stichy-stichy. He's going to be a surgeon and a mental health expert, not a battlefield commander.

I really, really hope this is not the case.  It sounds like this is something you would enjoy but for me personally, that's about the worst possible plot arc.  I'm open to Kaladin either living or dying.  I'm not open to him being a mental health expert as his primary role.  Frankly, I'd probably skip his chapters in SA5 if that's where his plot goes and he's my favorite character in the books up to this point.  Kaladin preaching to the cast and audience about how to properly treat folks with mental health challenges is something I'm not interested in reading about.

Personally - I think that the end of RoW showed us Kaladin getting back on the horse.  He's not going to continue as a surgeon and he's not going to become a mental health expert.  He's going to get back to fighting - the whole point of his character arc in RoW was that he had to overcome his belief that he was failing if he couldn't save everyone.  His character arc was him coming to terms with and understanding how to deal with a life where he does have friends die in battle regularly.  He probably won't go back to being exactly the same as he was in WoK or WoR, but he'll be back in action.  I think he'll have some mental health related plot points - sympathizing with and trying to help people who struggle with depression.  But, I don't think that will be a main or even secondary focus of his plot in SA5.

I'd rather he survives SA5 and he could have an interesting story in the back 5.  I agree with those who are saying it would make sense thematically that he is forced to choose to save himself and let someone else make the sacrifice - it would make for a great story for him in the back 5 processing the after effects of being forced to do that.  I'd be sad, but accept it if he does die in SA5.  I think there could be a great story told about his death too.

Oh - and to the topic of this thread - please let Syl stay a spren :).  But - I do admit there are hints she might become human, or that at least it may be something that the characters consider.

I didn't like Oathbringer very well either.  I think @Oltux72 is onto something.  OB is where Sanderson started shifting from telling a story about characters to a story about "advance the plot at all costs."  OB was my least favorite by a significant margin until RoW.  Now that RoW is out, I like it less than OB by an even wider margin and I actually probably like OB better now by comparison.  I really do think it has a lot to do with the fact that OB starts shifting towards being primarily plot driven, but RoW goes all the way there. 

Other things I didn't like about OB were Shallan's character arc and the resolution of the Kaladin/Shallan/Adolin romance plot.  Those are controversial and everyone's opinion on that will vary though.  I don't want to discuss those things in this thread, but because I didn't like them it lowered my overall opinion of the book.  Less controversially, the way Amaram's character was handled also didn't sit well with me. He went from being a nuanced, interesting morally gray character to one dimensional.  

On 12/28/2021 at 1:02 PM, Anomander Rake said:

I agree and disagree!  I think you are totally correct that Kal is gonna be locked in and focused next book, but I think he'll still get some relationship developments and similar in book 5 - they just wont be a weight to him anymore, but something positive!  Brandon has said Kal turned a corner with the conclusion of RoW, so fully expect our capable bridgeboy to really come into his own this book.

Maybe I'm being a little hopeful here, and will need to wait for the back 5, but this is my guess!

I'd love to see him doing something on the romance front, but I'm not hopeful.  Then again, Syl was very adamant to Kaladin that he shouldn't be content with being alone and that he needs more meaningful connections.  So, maybe the theme will come back.  But I think that SA5 has to be really soon after SA4 in world time based on the bargain Dalinar made right?  So there probably isn't going to be time for Kaladin to really develop a love interest.  He might run into Tarah or have an on screen meaningful conversation with Laral, or maybe Lyn.

On 12/22/2021 at 10:07 PM, Sp00ks said:

I didn't mind Wayne that much honestly. I feel like, knowing myself, I should have disliked him, but he didn't bother me too much. I think part of it has to do with me having listened to the audio books of era 2 rather than reading them. The reader gave him a decent voice and I feel like his delivery of the lines made them fine. Wayne sorta feels similar to Lopen from Stormlight I guess

Yeah, nothing against you for liking him.  I just can't stand Wayne or Lopen.  I think Lopen is probably worse, but only slightly.  Lift is right on that line, if she were to tell a few more bad jokes she'd move to "grit your teeth while reading" territory haha.  I could see how the audiobook could definitely help with a character like that though, I just never listen to the audiobooks.

On 12/19/2021 at 8:28 AM, Sp00ks said:

It's not that I dislike the magical fights, I just feel like his big end of book ones feel poorly written sometimes. This is very difficult for me to explain. I guess it's maybe that, often the climactic end of book fight happens AFTER the main character has finished their emotional arc for the book. Like again, WoR, the fight happens after that scene (not gonna put spoilers but you know the one) and the fight really just feels like "Wow Kaladin sure is epic now guys" rather than there being an actual emotional conflict that I care about. I LOVE the emotional payoffs, I dislike the fights that come after them. The end of the Final Empire and We'll of Ascension we're really good since the emotional payoffs were part of the fights at the end 

I know it's the point and that they all need to eventually come together. That's not the problem. My issue with it is he often handles it pretty poorly, at least in my opinion. Sometimes, he handles it fine, I like the Ghost bloods since it's very gradually revealed. I really dislike things like the Ire where it just "happens" and feels extremely forced. There are other examples but these are the easiest.

I'm with you on the cosmere reveals and a lot of other things - it's just something that happens at times in Sanderson's writing.  Personally, I liked the end of WoR and it felt earned to me because he still did have to go through a major emotional arc first.  But, many other things don't land for me.  The way I've started to think of it is that it feels like Sanderson has certain moments planned out where Character X is supposed to meet Character Y or Z event needs to happen or whatever and even though there hasn't really been time to build up to it in a way that makes it feel good he's kind of like "Well, it's gotta happen now or we'll be bogged down forever, so it's happening even if it feels awkward."  Compare that to books like WoT or GoT where those kinds of meet ups and big events feel extremely natural and its a stark contrast.  But, then again GRRM spends a decade writing each book and the last two he released were originally intended to be one big book (or was it books 3 and 4?).  And Jordan also found himself bogged down for years tying up loose ends with tons of subplots and was never able to finish his series.

By contrast, I think Sanderson sees these moments and realizes he's not totally pulling them off but figures he needs to just keep going or he'll never get where he wants to go with the story.  So, as long as it's not too prevalent I am ok with it - he's able to tell a lot of really cool stories because he doesn't bog himself down making things exactly perfect.  Honestly, RoW was starting to push the limit for me though.  So, I hope he pulls it back with SA5.

But on the topic of Mistborn Era 2 - if we could cut Wayne's character I would like these books so much more.  Wayne's humor is just absolutely terrible.  Everything about him just feels unnatural.  I know it's the kind of humor Sanderson personally likes, but it does not land for me.  Wayne feels like that weird fan servicey character that gets added into video games sometimes and partly breaks the 4th wall by being all like "Yeah, I like all the stuff you fans like too, isn't this stuff SOOOOOO cooolllll?????"  I generally liked Era 2, but haven't touched the books since they first came out.  I need to go back and reread them this next year.

I liked the book - it felt much better than Starsight, imo.  It felt like Cytonic really brought us back to the main story, where Starsight got things really sidetracked.  Or maybe, it brought context to Starsight in that it's just in Spensa's nature to go off and have adventures so it wasn't quite as jarring.  I think what I liked about it was that Spensa remained focused on her ultimate goal of saving Detritus and the humans, still maintained her connection with Jurgen, but still was able to have a cool adventure and meet new people.  I think is what I felt was missing in Starsight - Spensa just rushed off to a new world and formed emotional connections with new people we (I) really didn't care about.  A big part of the fun of Skyward for me was reading her interactions with the whole team on Detritus.  We had new characters introduced in Cytonic, but Spensa always kept them at arm's length.  She eventually formed a bond with Chet but that felt earned after her initial skepticism of him.

I'll never love Sanderson's style of humor, but I felt like he did a better job of packaging it in this book vs. RoW so that it was less grating and even actually enjoyable sometimes.  

The overall worldbuilding was a cool sci-fi concept and I really liked the reveal of who/what the Delvers were and how they came to be what they are.  I agree w/ a few other posters that the pacing did feel uneven and sometimes a bit too low stakes but I was also OK with that.  The final explanation of why they behave that way (avoiding lethal weapons, etc) made sense to me.  I also liked the idea of how different characters wrestled with the idea of what to do - should they stay in the Nowhere and find quiet peace at the partial cost of their identity or should they return to the Somewhere and face hardships but have the chance to make a difference.

Anyway, overall I really liked it.

2 hours ago, Elegy said:

I see and acknowledge your point, but I gotta disagree. First (although this isn't really my point), to name some instances where this has been treated differently in recent years: Jasnah proposes genocide as a solution to their problems in Oathbringer, Wayne is a morally uncomfortable character to a degree that bothers a lot of readers of Mistborn Era 2. You could call Harmony one of the "good guys" of Era 2, and the ending of Shadow of Self is all about difficult, morally questionable decisions that were the best option. I haven't read Lux yet, but from what I've gathered, the main characters in there are morally more in a gray area than in the original Reckoners books ... to name some examples. Now, I agree that most of Brandon's main characters still tend to be heroic, by a long shot! But that's not something that ever changed, because that was always the case. It was the same with Elantris and Warbreaker, for instance. Mistborn is actually the exception across the board. I think you should also keep in mind that the main characters in Stormlight would basically break their bonds if their weren't heroic, so them being the good guys is written into the magic system. So at least there's good reasons for it in this series: If they weren't "good", most of them wouldn't have their bonds anyway and therefore wouldn't be important for the story.

As a result, I also disagree that the heroic nature of the characters in his stories is a result of his attempts to be more inclusive. Instead, they are a conscious attempt at reflecting his own view of mankind, which is an optimistic one in contrast to the pessimistic one that was popular in the genre when he got published (and is still popular now). He talks about it a bit here and here.

So I believe that you (understandably) came to this conclusion because Mistborn is the story that has the most antihero characters and was incidentally one of his first published stories. But apart from that one he was always on the side of "many heroic characters that have to make some hard decisions here and there, with a few morally gray characters thrown in there". Even before he got published. There's not a lot of antiheroes in White Sand, if you read the unpublished manuscript. He didn't change in that regard, but he bent his rules a bit for Mistborn, which was early enough in his publishing career to make it seem like he changed. But looking at it more closely, I think it's safe to say that he didn't. If you're looking for the problematic main characters, you won't find more of them in the pre-Mistborn stuff than after it.

(All that said, much respects to the careful way you phrased your comment!)

I think that's a very fair point - and I do totally understand that Sanderson's own personal views on mankind aren't really compatible with grimdark and anti-heroes and he's made that clear.  Honestly, that outlook is one of the reasons I like him, especially at the time of his earlier writing where he was such a breath of fresh air among all that dark fantasy that was coming out.  I do agree that Sanderson's books have (generally) never had tons of morally grey characters and heroes.  And you do point out clearly that there are still -some- characters in more recent books who propose morally gray solutions. I think something I've realized feels missing is that I don't remember as many moral questions about what the heroes should do where reasonable readers could choose different sides.  Something like Jasnah suggesting genocide of the Parshmen/Parshendi is a great moral question for the reader to think about with rational arguments on both sides.  It's terrible, but could also save the lives of millions or billions.  And it was a real course of action being considered by someone in a position of power.  The contrast in style between Dalinar and Sadeas was also a moral question - Sadeas got results and in his own way believed that he was doing what was best for the people of Roshar and even for his own people.  He even had some arguments to use in his favor.  It doesn't mean he was right, but he was aiming for something that could be factually considered beneficial to his people.  We all agree Dalinar was right, but there was a real argument presented by Adolin that it would have benefited his people if Dalinar would have been more like Sadeas (not all the way).

It has felt to me like the trend in "everybody gets along" has really accelerated post Oathbringer.  I felt like Oathbringer was the first few small steps in that direction.  A good example is the change in treatment of Amaram's character from WoR to OB.  In WoR, Amaram was generally portrayed as someone who had done good in his life except for the one heinous crime he committed against Kaladin and his squad which he rationally argued was justified.  He made choices that definitely made him a bad person, but he still wanted to do good.  The Amaram/Kaladin/Dalinar plot of WoR was great because it brought Dalinar and Kaladin into conflict and Dalinar had every reason to stand by Amaram and give him the benefit of the doubt.  By the time we reached OB, Amaram was no longer a man who had noble ideals but was willing to do something immoral to achieve them weighing the lives of the few against the lives of the many - he'd become a one note villain who was implied to have (at minimum) committed constant sexual harassment if not worse.  None of that had been hinted at in his character development before.  Amaram was only a relatively small side character, so it wasn't that important overall.  I think looking at Starsight, Dawnshard, and RoW you've seen Sanderson's writing move sharply more towards the direction of minimal conflict among protagonists, shift in tone to focus more on socially liberal themes, increased focus on inclusion/diversity, etc.  I haven't read all of his more minor books - Lux, Perfect State, Dark One, etc so maybe his writing is different there.  Maybe it's not Sanderson that's changed, but me - maybe my tastes have shifted more toward the less optimistic version of fantasy.  It could also be the point we are in the story - in tWoK and WoR we still had "antagonistic allies" for our heroes, but by OB the plot had moved along and these "antagonistic allies" had shaken out into full blown enemies.

Either way, it's just interesting to hear what someone else has to say about this.  And it does make me wonder if it's more my own tastes that changed or his writing.

I think something that Sanderson has done over the years, with a marked increase in the last few years, is increase his level of diversity in his works and change the tone of his books to be more explicitly "pro-diversity" and socially liberal.  Inclusion is a very worthy goal and I'm glad that there are now more people who can envision themselves in the worlds of the Cosmere.  And understanding the views of the SFF fandom at large I am sure that a large part of his fanbase is cheering loudly for this and more are saying he hasn't gone far enough yet and should go farther.

Respectfully and carefully and with the best of possible intentions, I want to say that I believe there's a risk in this approach too.  I think this tone shift is what has made his work feel more "mellow" and lacking in conflict.  I think over time, Sanderson's work has started to shift to include fewer possible views and ways that someone on the "good team" could think and act.  Mr. T being really the only recent exception as someone who has good side goals but evil side methods.  But think back to Mistborn - you had Vin being the classic "I want to sacrifice myself to save everybody!" hero.  Kelsier was selfish and wanted to save people for his own glory and defeat the Lord Ruler for his own personal ends.  Breeze had questionable ethics in his use of emotional allomancy.  Even the Lord Ruler is revealed to be not exactly what he seems morally.  Mistborn felt like a group of people with diverse viewpoints and moral values coming together to solve a world ending problem.  Stormlight lately feels like a group of people who all have the same views and moral values teaming up to save the world and anyone who might have good goals but different views in how to achieve them is cast as a villain.  Just as an example, I think it would have been more interesting to see "Team Radiant" forced to accept someone like Sadeas or Amaram as part of the alliance to face down Odium and that they hadn't gone full mustache twirling evil.  Instead, they could have been cast more like a Kelsier who used questionable ethics and had selfish motivations but ultimately wanted to do something that would end up being good for everyone.  And now Team Radiant is basically just a group of people who all highly value and promote acceptance and inclusion as the solution to defeating Odium, they just do it in different degrees and slightly different flavors.  Those are, again, noble goals and very good things.  But I believe it would be more interesting if some of the "good guys" had different and conflicting views.  I fully admit this is my own viewpoint and may not be accurate. 

Hope he's getting credit/permission for this!  (I'm sure he is).  Unfortunately Fortnite has a history of ripping off people and profiting from it.  Of all things - stealing Leo P's sweet saxophone moves

How grimdark is Sanderson?  I'd say maybe 10-20%.  He's said himself that early on in his career when GRRM was at his peak of actually releasing books and grimdark was all the rage he tried to write more in the style of GRRM (who I'd probably call grimdark light) or Joe Abercrombie and it just didn't work.  So at least in his own mind, I'd say Sanderson is not grimdark.

I think most fantasy is based on the premise of fighting horrible odds and an overwhelming evil force.  Look at LotR for example - tons of good people die, people are horribly tortured and transformed into evil creatures, and it looks like there is no chance the forces of good will win.  No one would call LotR grimdark, though things look grim for the heroes throughout most of the story.  The reason why is because the story is about maintaining hope and the heroes are generally good people, though some have flaws and make mistakes.  Ultimately the forces of good win, even though they have to pay a steep price.

I think to be grimdark you have to meet a few criteria:

1) Good people either don't exist or are too weak/naive to make any difference in the main conflict of the book.  No one in a position of power is doing anything that is intended to help people or minimize suffering in the world.

2) The protagonist is an anti-hero who does evil things to advance their own personal goals.  Usually, horrible abuse and trauma have occurred to make them feel this way which is explored in depth in the book.  They may get a redemption arc, but only at the very end of the book.  And usually, at most it will be something like "I'm an evil person and I know it, but I've done all the bad and evil things so that the good people don't have to.  I'm permanently stained with my evil deeds and can never be redeemed.  The best I can do is to get out of the picture and hand the reins over to someone who will try to make the world a better place."  They will typically not actually become a good person themselves.

3) The overall world is grim and its implied that pretty much everyone in it are living in pain and/or constant threat of annihilation.  The protagonist either knowingly adds to these threats, or has the power to solve the problems but chooses not to for selfish reasons.

4) The conflict in the world is not good vs. evil or even greater vs. lesser evil.  It's typically evil vs. evil or neutral vs. neutral.

5) The moral message of grimdark is always very cynical - something like "Everyone's just in it for themselves and their own personal gain and no one cares about the greater good"

6) Horrific acts are described in detail - torture, murder, rape, etc.  These acts are central to the plot.

I think the idea of Fleet being a story that means Kaladin is destined to die is not a bad idea.  But I don't think it means he will literally die once he reaches the Shin mountains.

The whole idea of the story was to tell Kaladin that even though death is inevitable it's still meaningful to do your best.  Even if you're sure to fail.  So, if that were to be his overall character arc, then it would make sense.  Kaladin tries his best, but fails in that final fight against the ultimate bad guy and buys enough time and inspires his friends and allies to win the final battle, or to be able to save themselves.

Wouldn't that be interesting if the 5th Ideal of the Windrunners was about knowing when it's right to sacrifice yourself to protect others and that you can only achieve it shortly before your own death?  I'm not sure if that would really happen or not.  But I think it would fit Sanderson's style.

I think a lot of it comes down to Shallan's own perception.  In WoK and early WoR, she believed she had a shardblade, but did not believe she was a Radiant because she'd repressed those memories.  So she expected her Shardblade to work like any other.  Did that mean she was bonded to Testament's dead blade?  Maybe.  But then again, doesn't the process of bonding a dead blade require an infused gemstone set into the blade to form the bond?

My personal theory is that she was bonded close enough to Pattern without really knowing or mentally processing it that she was summoning him as a blade.  As a Lightweaver, they didn't have to have a formal bond for him to allow her to summon him.  And she thought (incorrectly) that she was just summoning a dead blade.

I think it just came down to the story Sanderson was telling in RoW.  After thinking about it a while, it seems like he wanted to tell the story of Kaladin, alone figuring out how to conquer his own demons.  He put in the story of the failed relationship with Lyn to show that having a relationship with someone wouldn't help Kaladin.  That he needed to figure it out on his own.

I think that Tarah is probably not important for her own sake.  I doubt she's a secret child of a king or somehow really important to the overall story.  But, I could see her returning in SA5 to be a potential love interest or just friend to Kaladin.  I'd like to see something like that happen.  But then, I would have liked to see at least some interaction between Kaladin and Laral in RoW.  So, we'll just have to see.  I'd like to see Kaladin have a heart to heart with either Tarah, Laral, or both.  I think he could learn a thing or two about himself by doing that - get a glimpse of himself from an outside perspective and a better idea of why he sometimes struggles with personal relationships.  But I'm not holding my breath.  I think it's more likely that Kaladin is 100% mission focused in SA5.