Child of Hodor

Book too big. Make book smaller. It's hard to review because it's so big and has so many different storylines. 

I enjoyed the lore dumps of the new visions and Tanavast POVs. 

Kaladin's mission felt too videogamey go defeat the guardians of the temple to unlock the triforce type of thing. I felt like we didn't get enough of where people lived in Shinovar. 

The big loophole in the contract being capturing the capitals was a little disappointing. It was confusing how Taravangian can kind of fudge things in that regard, but Hoid is like "we can't change the laws that would be cheating". 

El didn't do much after a big buildup. 

BAM literally didn't do anything after a big build up. Rhlain and Renarin freeing her was a nice touch calling back to when she was trapped. 

I thought the ending worked well. 

Having Shallan playing Hide and Seek in the Visions felt a little redundant. We see the visions through Dalinar and then we see them through Shallan. 

I was definitely poisoned by Brandon saying the book would wrap up the front 5 arc and it didn't except for Dalinar. Looking forward to the Voidlight archives (Warlight whatever). Dismayed that it might be another 6.5 years before the new release. 

It's my least favorite of the Cosmere secret projects. One big chase without many memorable characters except Nomad and Aux. The banter between Nomad and Aux was good. Brandon is good at coming up with those types of pairings. 

I got a little tired of the constant Breath Equivalent Units counting. The world building is interesting. Brandon having to dance around all the future book spoilers was annoying. 

I received an email about how the Wandersail story had a video associated with it. They try to describe the essence of the story:

That last part is accurate, but hope?! It's the same story as in WoK. They kill a serving girl for nothing and then the society tears itself apart when they find out the Emperor is dead. 

 I guess they'd rather entice with nonsense then say "this is some dark stuff actually" 

9 hours ago, Argenti said:

I honestly just don't think you could write around it. Unlike things like going to the bathroom or sex (which Brandon has said he doesn't really want to write about) so many of these stories we like revolve around these moments of frankly, gruesome violence. 

One of the things I'm looking forward to most is Mistborn 

It's not "grimdark" but the setting of Mistborn is very bleak and Stormlight isn't much better. Stormlight 

From State of the Sanderson 2025:

Also, from State of the Sanderson 2025:

Running a tv show is a fulltime job, it takes much more than 40 hours a week. Even if Brandon is not a fulltime showrunner, but just reviewing scripts a vetoing certain things that will take a lot of his time. It just doesn't seem realistic to expect to be able to be very hands on with ongoing shows AND complete his books at anything like the rate he's set out. 

"You often seem to say the first passably clever thing that enters your mind." Jasnah to Shallan in Way of Kings. Just a viscous burn. 

I like the Lopen more simply because we've gotten less of him. I haven't grown tired of him like I did with Wayne. 

I've always thought Odium and Rayse are the "We". The Shard and the Vessel were not the best fit for each other. The Shard had previously tried to ditch Rayse for BAM and subsequently in RoW we see this golden light inside Rayse moving around it is trying to get out. The plural is an indication of the two entities not being aligned. Rayse isn't thinking of them as one singular being in that moment of stress. Rayse also uses "us" and "our army" when talking to Taravangian at the end of OB. It's like losing Dalinar as champion caused even more of a divide between the two entities and changed his self-conception.

Performed the feat of re-splitting the shards. He took up Autonomy and split Ruin and Preservation. He's autonomously the vessel for all three shards. Or he holds Autonomy separate while Ruin and Preservation stay merged.

We're assuming it's Sazed since he's referred to as "nice", but it could be a different Scadrian. (please not Kelsier please not Kelsier) 

It felt like two unrelated novellas stapled together. I enjoyed Starling and her crew more than the Dusk sections.  In part because there were more lore drops in the Starling sections. Which makes sense she knows Frost and Hoid and she visited Silverlight at times. 

I agree with what a lot of people have said the villain wasn't very good. Sunlit Man also had a weak villain.  I did like how he was very condescending to Dusk as a lower tech local. That felt very true to life. 

I'll have to go back through all the lore bits. 

53 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

Was the loophole thing just not a formal oath though? I thought that was just Rayse describing his individual nature and his personal Intent, whereas Taravangian as an individual is more of the loophole seeker. I don't think there was ever anything that prevented Rayse from using loopholes other than the fact that he has been existing for thousands of years and views himself in a very set and determined way. He isn't going to change on a whim and he was never a person to exploit a loophole... so he just solidified for millenia and become more and more entrenched in his own viewpoints. 

I don't know of any examples of Rayse making oaths as Rayse and not as Odium... maybe I missed that though and you can point me to where this is explicitly called out?

Edit to add: I also don't know that Taravangian as Odium would still be required to protect Kharbranth since the oath was made with Taravangian himself.. so Taravangian would have the power of both sides of the agreement and be able to change that. I don't think he would be forced to keep an oath that the previous vessel made with him, just as Dalinar was able to represent Honor in releasing Odium from the oath they had made that trapped Odium in the system. If both parties of an oath agree that it is better to dissolve the agreement, that's not breaking the oath it's just coming to a new understanding and making a new and improved version of the agreement/terms. And he holds control over both sides now right?

That's a good point about Taravangian basically making an arrangement with himself that he can tweak or dissolve. 

The reasoning around why Taravangian can exploit loopholes, but the other side can't always felt like handwavy nonsense.  Why can't they change the capital or change whether capturing the capital means you control all of a country? 'Cause that's cheating ... somehow. 

Nale says that Odium claimed Jezrien's blade when Moash killed Jezrien and took it. It's been "corrupted". 

Quote

"The Windrunner Honorblade has been corrupted." Nale called from ahead. ... "Our king, Jezrien was killed by the Windrunner traitor, Vyre. Odium took his Honorblade unto himself in that moment, corrupting it."  WaT Ch. 72

I think this means it no longer counts as an Honorblade. 

My issue with this and the contract law in WaT in general is that somehow the changing of the Vessel from Rayse to Taravangian meant Taravangian could exploit loopholes despite Rayse promising not to, yet somehow Dalinar could not also exploit loopholes by say changing which city was the capital of a nation even though Dalinar never explicitly promised not to use loopholes. 

Do these promises hold despite the Vessel changing or not? I think they should and Taravangian shouldn't be able to destroy Kharbranth without consequences, but I don't know anymore. 

The ending was much more of a ... then I was expecting. I don't like thinking about how long it is until book 6.

I'd argue that despite being free Taravangian is now more constrained than he was before. He's respecting the terms of the contest despite it being nullified just to keep Honor happy. He didn't kill Gavinor even though he wanted to because it would make Honor upset. Now he is being hunted by a bunch of shards he has to be stealthy in how he acts. The sapiant honor shard is a ticking time bomb that will cause Taravangian even more problems. 

It is sort of a pyrrhic victory for Taravangian because he took up that extra shard. 

I think a major difference between the first 3 (OB still really good imo) and the last 2 is the last two had flashbacks for characters that aren’t the main characters or even close to the main characters. 

The first three had strong themes connecting the present day and the flashbacks that resonated. The last two don’t resonate as strongly to me.

Another thing is the macro structural changes he made to the books. RoW had Part 1 be the climax to a book we didn’t see and a big lull in the middle. WaT he did the 10 days structure which is very different from the 5 part structure of the other ones.

Finally LENGTH! WaT is easily the longest book and was written in about the same time in years as other books when you factor in him not working on it much in 2022 due to Hollywood stuff.

There are more modern expressions and more noticeable continuity issues in this one than the others. It probably, in part, comes from there just being more words to write and edit in a similar timeframe. 

Maybe the First Gem he was the bearer of. His Topaz ring. Frost refers to it as being "dead" in his letter to Hoid. 

Quote

I'll address this letter to my "old friend," as I have no idea what name you're using currently. Have you given up on the gemstone, now that it is dead?
Words of Radiance Frost Letter to Hoid. Letters - The Coppermind - 17th Shard

In Dragonsteel Prime the ring contained a Dawnshard until it transferred to Hoid. Perhaps that much investiture being in the ring for a long enough period of time caused the ring to gain sapience in some way and the transfer of the Dawnshard killed it?  I don't know. 

LOL at the title

No, he is not alright. He has huge problems with all the other Shards after him and getting a somewhat sapient Honor will be trouble for him long term. 

A point against Taln having had the Exist Dawnshard is he has no problem hurting people, he's quite good at it. 

Holding a Dawnshard is not the only explanation for the soul warping.  It could be explained by Cultivation changing his spiritweb as she likes to do to people on occasion. Heck the order of events might be slightly off. Maybe he went to the Valley for a boon and didn't like the resulting change and tried to stab her. 

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

This makes a lot of sense, but Dawnshards make their bearers ageless and immortal - Sigzil is a prime example of this. Taln specifically said "no, thank you" to Honor's offer of immortality, claiming it's not a good thing. I doubt he would have said it like this if he already was immortal. 

WaT ch 65:

34 minutes ago, Argenti said:

It's possible that he had the one that was "somehow different than the rest," and it didn't make him immortal. And do we know if change does this too? Or just Exist? 

It's a good point he clearly thinks he is mortal. It could be he had one that didn't give him that or he hasn't figured out that he's immortal because it hasn't been very long since he gave it up or lost it. The Dawnshards don't exactly come with instructions that explain the consequences of being one.

21 minutes ago, a Faceless Immortal said:

I agree, my first thought was definitely a Dawnshard. However, my instincts tell me it can't be change either. Taln is remarkable for being unchanging and constant, and just like how the curse of 'Exist' is an inability to harm, 'Change' will undoubtedly leave some kind of mark that resists stagnation.

I do however find it extremely unlikely that there was a third Dawnshard in residence on Roshar, so perhaps it must be 'Change' after all? Perhaps Taln exemplified change by breaking the cycle of Desolations, and so the shard was okay with this even if he personally was kept in stasis for some five millennia.

He did get super ripped during his time as a Herald, he is described as having a gut right before he became a herald, so there's that change .

I don’t think Exist would be that useful in killing by itself. It along with the other 3 were used to kill Adonalsium but by itself I’m not sure. 

Having been a Dawnshard would go a long way toward explaining why he resisted the torture far far longer than anyone else besides just saying he’s that much better than everyone else naturally. 

"The light I love" seems to be the "captive". Either the Girl Who Looked Up or it's a back half thing having to do with the limited availability of various lights especially Stormlight. 

22 hours ago, alder24 said:

Truthfully, I don't fully understand the role of Braize in the new Oathpact, however returning to Roshar won't open the lock, simply because previously they agreed to open it after torture, now they are immune to torture and they won't agree, but they can still return to Roshar which is separate from agreeing to open the lock. Fused were torturing Heralds and made them agree to open the lock, which caused another Return, but this time they won't do it. That's how I understand it. We definitely need Brandon to explain this to us.

It seems like Braize was always an attractor of investiture with its strange metal core "well of souls". That's just the default setting for some reason and the Heralds took advantage of that to create a cage around it. Even now that the cage is being applied to spren on Roshar it doesn't change default setting of cognitive shadows being pulled to Braize. It's interesting it doesn't pull most Roshar spren there only Cognitive shadows and spren connected to them like Nale's spren. 

Quote

"This may well require you to travel to Braize, and its well of souls, to seal the enemy" Tanavast WaT Ch. 64

"I WAS TOO INTRIGUED BY A THIRD WORLD, MORE DISTANT FROM THE SUN. A COLD, DARK ROCK ... IT HAD A CURIOUS PROPERTY: A CORE OF A STRANGE METAL THAT ATTRACTED INVESTITURE" WaT Ch. 100

Nothing beats a good flute solo.

43 minutes ago, robardin said:

Interesting. I mean, it's clear in RoW (after he'd killed Jezrien) that Vyre was bonded to it, was able to access Windrunner Lashings thereby, and needed Stormlight to heal (but for his eyes) after falling from the sky outside Urithiru. So mechanically it still functioned the same even before Honor merged into Retribution.

But it does raise another question in my mind now: what was Ishar's original plan, even as Crazy Ishar, with Szeth? It seems like he was grooming him to be worthy of taking Jezrien's place in a renewed Oathpact of SOME sort, even if it would have been a weird, possibly impossible one.

But he'd been working on Szeth for years before engineering him to be sent out as Truthless with that Honorblade, which in turn was years before he ended up being "bought" by the Parshendi and used to kill Gavilar, etc., etc... ... Did Ishar foresee Jezrien's murder in the wake of another Desolation??? (Being why he sent Szeth out with Jezrien's Honorblade?)

It might ultimately be a bit of a hand wave to justify Kaladin getting a brand new honorspear instead of getting a sword which he has no experience fighting with. 

16 minutes ago, robardin said:

I would assume that it has not been "corrupted", and that Vyre can still use it just like he used it before the power of Honor merged with that of Odium, except powered with Warlight.

It depends how much you trust Nale. 

Quote

"The Windrunner Honorblade has been corrupted," Nale called from ahead. ... "Our king, Jezrien, was killed by the Windrunner traitor, Vyre. Odium took his Honorblade unto himself in that moment, corrupting it." WaT Ch. 72

I take what he saying as true, but I can't tell you what corrupted means mechanically.