Oltux72

Here, I think we come to the core issue of Wind and Truth. If we look at the plot lines Azimir: Good old decision by combat. Strategy features. But not philosophy. Shattered Plains: The combat aspect is in the end rendered superfluous. It is solved by a legal and political trick. Thaylenah: Nothing is really done. It is resolved by talking Cleansing of Shinovar: Subverted. In a sense Szeth was really truthless. Dalinar's plotline: He doesn't really do anything until the very end. He views visions of things being done. And the last point is important. If you view the visions in the Spritual Realm as plot, yep, extreme amounts of plot. If you see them as a gigantic lore dump, little immediately meaningful plot in the book. I can give no logical reason for one or the other view.

He is aware of the implications of the arcane arts on politics. Kelsier and Sazed speak about it in The Lost Metal. But I think I better summarize them now. All men are not born equal. Obviously not on Scadrial. On Roshar, Arelon and Nalthis they do not stay equal. The best ideological background for democracy is not present. Secularism is dead on arrival. I guess this needs no explanation. Power does not come almost exclusively from weapons. That is a bit more difficult to explain. All political power comes from the barrel of a gun - Mao Tse Tung (The temptation to use that quote is too big) Without Arcane Powers power is ultimately exercised by giving commands to groups of armed men. Hence the tools of political power rest on ways of getting these people to do as you want them to. Jasnah herself schools Shallan in this topic. I find it ironic that Jasnah in her lesson is teaching the old Roshar from the time before Radiance came back. Now the message is not so clear any more. If Jasnah Kholin wanted to enforce her royal will, she could come after the rebels in person with Plate and Blade and make them find out whether there is a god in the Beyond. Constitutions (and politicians in political systems) have power because people believe that they have that power. Radiants have power because you cannot defeat them in combat. In Urithiru they have even more power. If you will, Arcane Powers diminish the relative power of the state, unless the people wielding those powers wield them in the service of the state. The question is how you would make them. Usually the answer is money. That does not work in Urithiru. They are also the foundation of the econmy.

Yes. That was the last time Odium could have been stopped at least temporarily. If the battle of Narak had gone better for the Alethi, Dalinar might have stopped the Everstorm then and there. I am afraid I have to say that this is hindsight speaking. That is the basic conundrum which became fully clear only in Oathbringer. Psychologically and thematically, yes. I was imprecise. I should have said that until the Battle of Narak hope had a much better foundation in reality than afterwards. Well, I must say that I believe that Retribution has been introduced to stay. Hence I am biased. Wind and Truth has destroyed so much, that even if things can improve, the whole cannot be fully fixed anymore. The Stormfather is dead. Cultivation has fled. Hence, like it or not, I believe the next arc will be about how to survive the change and how to reintegrate with a Roshar ruled by Singers. And in addition, Shallan in an act of supreme stupidity Dalinar tolerated has started a war with Scadrial. Frankly he should have arrested her on a charge of treason. It is a perfectly valid choice, but a choice with drawbacks. In particular Brandon is managing to write multiple books whose foreground topic is war, but refuses to write much about war in SA 4 and 5. That is understandable, as he already did write about war in form of the story of Bridge Four, but he still made a promise he did not keep. Even when he writes about war, we get a sanitized version. For instance the refugees we see do not suffer from malnutrition or epidemics and we see little of the general lawlessness war brings with itself and its consequences. Instead Rhythm of War is essentilly a retelling of "Die Hard" and "Oppenheimer". I personally loved seeing Navani applying scientific principles, but I am aware that that is a minority preference. Yes, we got Jasnah turning into the Radiant equivalent of carpet bombing with napalm, but even in that regard SA 1 & 2 were better. You see the issue? The first two books and to an extent Oathbringer have war, but the books about a war do not (Kaladin fighting in Urithiru is not war, that is a single man's fight - a different thing). In fact Wind and Truth goes so deeply into the metaphorical that it has very little plot. Parts of the book are literally a discussion on philosophy substituted for a plot. I bow to Brandon because he did that so well that I found it interesting, but again - a minority taste I am afraid.

I am again forced to state the obvious: Jasnah will not determine the political future of Roshar. Retribution's steward, most likely El, will do so most of all. Renarin and Jasnah are giving up power. It seems quite unlikely to me that the human Rosharans will listen to the losers about how to organize themselves in the long run. Nor am I convinced Navani or Gavinor, should he survive, will see things her way. Because the absolute monarch was a Bondsmith, the Bondsmith who was authorized to speak for Honor. Suppose the elected government sends the police to enforce the law on a Radiant and that Radiant just refuses. Then what?

I am sorry I should have been more explicit. I wanted to say that these categories are the unavoidable outcome of telling two related, but fundamentally different sets of stories. SA 1 & 2 are a prelude to a war, SA 3 - 5 are a war story. It is unavoidable that the readership be divided in their preference based on which kind of stories they like most. My point was that this does not allow a conclusion back to the quality of the books. The whole setup is an echo. I am sorry, but we need to be clear about this. The whole war is to the Radiants like the chasm runs to Bridge Four. You fight. If you win the battle, the enemies you killed will be back. And in a steady cadence some of your mates won't return. Until, one day, they will return without you. Only that this time there is no Kaladin to give them hope and eventually lead them to freedom. Kaladin breaks. Yes, he overcomes the breakage, but Kaladin Stormblessed ends Rhythm of War with a pyrrhic victory. He is spent. SA 3 - 5 are the story of a war being lost. Even Wind and Truth cannot fundamentally alter that. We can discuss whether it ends in a bitter defeat of the Radiants or some kind of inconclusive peace arrived at an insane cost, but a glorious victory it is not. And that leads to the structural issuess of SA 3 - 5 the story about the horrors of war was already told they are a sequence of books about a war that refuse to show us the war. We see the very start and the very end. they are very cruel books. SA 1 - 2 are stories of hope. The others are not. Most popular stories feature a setback in the middle. The first half of SA is the very opposite. Arguably the high point is the rediscovery of Urithiru. It is not enough. Then the tower becomes radiant again in Rhythm of War. Yet ... it ... is ... not ... enough. SA 4 - 5 are not an echo of SA 1 - 2/3, but they revert it. Sure they are similar, but that is not an echo in the strict sense. Brandon sets up a beautiful garden and then he systematically burns the plants, smashes the benches and salts the earth it stood on. You see the beauty again. But not in a good way. Sure it did not work. It was not supposed to.

They are both Radiants and not stupid. They won't go for a system that must collapse. Well, no, I am sorry, but if that were strictly true Venli wouldn't have needed to free Lift and Kaladin could have let Moash kill Elhokar. You can violate your oaths by inaction. Possibly not in every order, but in some cases that will happen. That is indeed the likely answer. It gives those in government providing these benefits power. If the Edgedancers don't get what they feel they need to insist on, they can threaten to pull the plug on farming. Likewise you need the Lightweavers for soulcasting. Respectively you can give the people power over taxation and it means very little if the bulk of state revenue comes from other sources.

They are very different books. The first two are about an ancient evil threatening to destroy a wonderfully rich - though maybe decadent - world. The next three books show the looming evil actually returning and destroying that world. Other stories would have ended with a last minute heroic saving of the world. In fact Brandon has written that story in The Lost Metal. The first half of the Stormlight archive can be read in many ways, but for the main protagonists of the first two books it is a story of them failing and the world they strove to protect being destroyed. I am afraid I have to also say that the first two books are in a way more simplistic. Odium is evil, the budding Radiants are good, as they are trying to save something that, though very, very obviously flawed is worth saving. From Oathbringer onwards that is challenged. Do the Parshendi deserve to win? The question is outright asked and a madman answers it. Now I could read the first half (SA 1- 5) as a classical tragedy if I wanted to. In that case Jasnah Kholin is Cassandra and the message is that sometimes the extremist is right and you suffer the consequences if you do not listen to them. Or I could read it as a story of liberation. The alien invaders are beaten and justice is restored, as it ought to be, even at the cost of destroying something rich and beautiful. Thogh, yes, Rhythm of War and Wind and Truth are in my humble opinion worse books in execution than the earlier three. Hence I personally view Oathbringer as the pinnacle of the first half. In terms of the progression of the broader story I think Wind and Truth has been a stroke of genius. It looked to me like the Cosmere was about to degenerate into a simple dichtomy of Roshar being the good guys and Kelsier being the evil overlord of the dastardly imperialist Scadrians. This book has been the turn to the necessary correction.

Let me put it this way: Germans certainly had had enough of the monarchy. However that need not automatically translate into support for democracy. That view is particular to a certain time and a certain culture. There are a few points which make Urithiru different. The orders, respectively their members are bound by oaths. If you see something violating your oath as a Radiant, you cannot just accept it because it was democratically voted in. Secondly Urithiru is different from almost any state in history in that it does not depend on taxation or military service. The Radiants are the armed forces and the idea of muggles fighting Invested people bearing Plate and Blade is ludicrous. In addition the state, in the form of the queen and her spren are the ultimate source of basic economic activity. She provides the Towerlight. Urithiru in turn cannot feed itself without Soulcasters and Radiants using Progression on crops. Even housing is provided by the state.

So do I. So do most people, most likely. That has not been the issue with the book. The problem is the lack of the rest. The revelation of this information is most of the plot. It is a very indirect book. It is about people viewing stuff essentially.

Because that is what the majority of the population of Urithiru comes from. It was first crewed by the Alethi armies fleeing the battle of Narak. Now they've added the population fleeing from the Shattered Plains. If you are moving to a representative government in Urithiru, it will be Alethi. And it will be composed of people who have personally lost everything and whose relatives are now serfs in Alethkar. They are not going to be happy with their leadership. Sure he is. A man raised for two decades by Taravangian, their enemy, in the line of succession? That is a nightmare. He has to die. If he also can serve as a scapegoat, the better it is.

Because he was on the verge of losing what took him thousands of years to achieve and be put into a situation, where time was working against him. Honor was back The Fused won't last another 1000 years The Knights Radiant were rebuilding Being allowed to leave was the better option.

The thing is that he could have had that result cheaper. He did not even try to renegotiate.

Two things They are not absolutely clear on what exactly happened up there. At least not until he Sibling or Navani start talking again. One also does not kill one's kin. Pretty close to a human universal. So, yes, Dalinar was weak and thus failed. I believe that will be the dominant view in due course. But still he has excuses, like Cultivation telling him to go to the Spiritual Realm. That's what an Alethi leader may do. Provided there is something to justify. That I doubt. Honor is about oaths. The Alethi are supposed to represent that. Treason is unforgivable. As soon as somebody takes up weapons against his kingdom, it is over. His or her reasons don't matter.

What would you do with it? Ferry troops? The places they need to move troops to are colocated with oathgates.

The Knights of Wind and Truth from which Wind and Truth is "derived" was written several years after Rhythm of War as written by Raboniel, who was thousands of years old when she wrote it.

Retribution recalled all his power. To put it bluntly: Why have the Fused survived that? Shouldn't the power that keeps them persisting have gone back to Odium's successor?

Not to be obnoxious, but you can see the sun. If a device were to point always at the sun, wouldn't they notice and wonder what is so great about a device that just points at a thing you can just see?

I think that Cultivation knows that Harmony is playing a leading role in the shardic coalition against Retribution. Hence she will avoid him. She has fought enough.

Yes. Seeking power is not a negative thing in a king in Alethi culture. It is at worst morally ambiguous. In the end he fought for Roshar in a war he didn't start.

Dalinar failed. That is true. However, he fought a god. There is a limit to the extent you can blame somebody for thus failing. Gavinor, however, raised a weapon against his own people. I highly doubt that Alethi will take any excuse whatsoever for that. You mean the same Jasnah who has ... practical views on how to deal with failures in the family? It is impossible to see how she will take her defeat in Thaylenah, but it is possible that in her mind, Dalinar was ultimately weak for failing to kill the one who fought against his own people.

It seems to me that a Skybreaker would be required to uphold a peace treaty, hence they are against the side breaking it. If that is a gray area, I would expect them to stay mostly neutral, as they are aware that not everything is a question of law.

Why would the spren or Sja-Anat care? Retribution wants them dead anyway.

That raises fundamental questions. How does the subastral of an uninhabitated world look like? How did the subastral of Roshar look like before glass was invented?

Which conflict? I am sorry, but this is important. The contest has happened. Very few, if any at all, Skybreakers denied the validity of the contract between Odium and Honor's representative. El followed it. Retribution followed it. The original question has become moot. A valid peace treaty has ended the war. Now the treaty needs to be followed. I am afraid the Skybreakers will be almost unanimous in that regard.

Heralds, Fused, Regals, regular Shardbearers, the Shards, Vasher, Lift, And he is not alone. Yes there was a side of the story that subscribed to that philosophy. It lost. The story was a contest between two sides, not a story that started with this basic assumption. It showed his character. Adolin is not just somebody who only fights for sport or as a part of his duties. He is a killer. A nice killer, but a killer nonetheless. Sort of. Literally you are right. It is about accepting what you did and who you are. Denial about that is wrong. But that is not the same thing as facing consequences for it. I am afraid as fandom we need to make up our collective minds. We cannot be disappointed about Adolin facing no consequences for mudering Sadeas, but still mourn Elhokar's death. Nor should we accept Jasnah on the throne of Alethkar.