Elegy

Virtuosity is my favorite by far! Reason and Cultivation are next. In relation to the theory that the Shards can be grouped according to the Dawnshards, I believe that there are 4 negative-negative (like Ruin), 4 postive-positive (like Preservation), and 8 more balanced Shards (4 positive-negative and 4 negative-positive). And I believe that the more balanced Shards are more likely to be less disruptive. I would count these three to the balanced Shards, although I'm of course not sure where exactly they would land. (Cultivation for example could be a combination of Change and Exist, with its challenging and its nurturing side - two opposing Commands, one negative, one positive. If it's more on the Change side or more on the Exist side is hard to say though.) It's worth mentioning that Dominion was described by Brandon as "Conquest" before, so chances are that it isn't the Shard of control, but the Shard of war (in a similar way to Virtuosity not being the Shard of being a virtuoso, but the Shard of the more general concept of art). Which would be up there with Odium as one of the most dangerous ones imo. But no matter what of the two, it's definitely the Shard that I identify the least with, personally.

I get what you mean, in the sense that many people disliking a certain aspect of a book doesn't mean it's necessary to rework it. But I think these are two different situations. With characters, you can't attempt to please everyone in the first place - any character with a lot of personality (and let's be honest, especially female characters with a lot of personality) will bother people. Doing a character right means that there will be people who dislike them, because people who feel alive will be dislikable to a certain amount of readers. I think it's an entirely different ghing with a climactic pay-off like Dalinar's sacrifice - especially since the Hoid scenes make it so abundantly clear what Brandon's intention was. His intention was not that everyone would like Shallan. But his intention was that everyone thought Dalinar did something worthwhile. Like, he lets Hoid spell it out to the readers why they are supposed to feel that way. And many fundamentally disagree that Dalinar has accomplished what the book obviously wants us to believe he has. To sum it up, you know you've done a character right when there are people who love them and identify with them and other people who are annoyed by them. And you know you've done a pay-off wrong when a sizable amount of your readers think that it's unsatisfying and not well set-up, or even disagree with the whole foundation of the decision the character made. Brandon has said things that amount to just that in WOBs before, and I agree with him. (As an aside that doesn't really change my point, I personally think that Shallan is an amazing character and I genuinely believe that her arc - with her giant memory jigsaw and the personalities and all the intricacies that combination entails - is one of the most creative and ambitious things Brandon - or any storyteller - has ever done.)

The problem with these reading order question is always that every reader's experience is incredibly different. For every person who says that Secret History ruins huge parts of Bands of Mourning, there are people like me who think that it's best directly after Hero of Ages, with Era 1 still fresh in your mind, providing an intro to the Cosmere as a whole after that one's very cohesive ending. What approach is the right one depends on the individual, but how can you know the right one for yourself before reading the books? Brandon himself considers Secret History a "minor spoiler" for Bands of Mourning (see Arcanum Unbounded), so he thinks that it's generally okay to read it before. I personally even think that Bands of Mourning's ending comes completely out of nowhere without Secret History. It can seem like a fake-out, while Secret History immediately explains how it was possible for him to come back (while retaining the mystery of what he does after Era 1, and if he even is still on the planet). So if you're allergic to fake-outs like me, that order is the better one. But even considering that that's a personal preference, I still think that Era 1 -> Secret History -> Stormlight (with Warbreaker before it) -> Era 2 tends to be the most preferable sequence, although there is no perfect one. Release order is always a safe bet of course, but if I were to start with the Cosmere now, I'd hate to switch between series, so I'd prefer to keep them in one piece.

But Retribution must change fundamentally for the story to have a satisfying arc - it's a dangerous combination that represents something that has been portrayed as extremely negative and destructive throughout the series. There's a bunch of ways this could change. It can be splintered, or integrated, or possibly redefined with another, less malevolent Intent, or something else that we don't even know is possible. But having book 10 end in a way that is less resolved than book 5 seems like a bad storytelling choice, which to me is an argument agaist Sanderson going down that route. So yeah, while the powers of the Shards Honor and Odium will very likely still be part of the Cosmere story past Stormlight 10, Retribution itself is very unlikely to exist beyond Stormlight in the shape and form as it is now. Of course, these are indeed assumptions. But you are asking questions about books that will be written in 25 years, so all answers you get will be assumptions.

I did not say anything about Retribution being "destroyed". You seem to be the one making assumptions. (It's practically impossible to "destroy" a Shard anyway.) I am saying that it is unlikely for a series that has Odium/Retribution as a main antagonist to end without a solution for the threat that Odium represents for Roshar. A solution can be found in many potential ways. So I don't see how what you're saying counter my point that it would be a bad move storytelling-wise to end a series that will presumably be longer than the entirety of Wheel of Time with the main problem unresolved.

It would certainly be annoying for book 10 in a 10 book series to end on a cliffhanger and a promise that it will be resolved in book 13 (or 16) in another book series ... I wouldn't put it beyond Brandon (anymore), but I sure hope that's not the plan. I think it would be cool if Retribution's threat to the Cosmere was one of the central reasons for the tensions between the planets that lead to the space age conflict. Beyond that, we have enough other Shards (and non-Shards) that can pose threats so we don't have to resort to Odium or a variation of it as an antagonist for two thirds of the whole Cosmere.

Bands of Mourning used to be my favorite of the bunch (if you can call it that), but the fact that many of the things it set up were left mostly untouched and unexpanded in Lost Metal soured me on its overall position in the series. I still believe it's the most well-rounded of the four in and of itself, while Lost Metal has the most stand-out moments for me and Shadows of Self (of course) has the best ending (which is genuinely amazing). It's a consistent series for sure, but not coherent as a whole, which weakens each of the individual books imo. Of course I know and acknowledge that many people love these four books, but I personally was disappointed with the way it unfolded

Hell yeah, let's go! The tiers are actually ranked, albeit often loosely. S-Tier: In my top 10 favorite books ever 1. Words of Radiance 2. Way of Kings A-Tier: Amazing 1. Oathbringer 2. The Final Empire 3. The Hero of Ages 4. The Emperor's Soul 5. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter 6. Warbreaker B-Tier: Good 1. The Well of Ascension 2. Shadows for Silence 3. Secret History 4. Dawnshard 5. Tress of the Emerald Sea 6. Wind and Truth 7. Edgedancer 8. Rhythm of War C-Tier: Meh 1. Elantris 2. The Sunlit Man 3. Sixth of the Dusk 4. The Lost Metal 5. The Bands of Mourning 6. Allomancer Jak 7. Shadows of Self 8. Alloy of Law D-Tier: Weak 1. The Eleventh Metal 2. The Hope of Elantris Altogether a fantastic achievement, especially considering that the only strories I straight-up dislke are the shortest, supplement-style ones. Side-note, all the Mistborn Era 2 books are pretty much interchangable to me.

Thank you So once every nine pages I should probably stress that I liked almost all of the big ideas that were central to the book, the themes of previous books were handled well and expanded upon, and except for Moash, every character development seems like a logical next step. This book certainly hasn't "ruined" the story (I think I've read that phrase several times) to me. Still, the execution of many (often key) moments felt sloppy, and the overall impact was way weaker than the story deserved as a consequence. It's odd that the books with the highest stakes in SA seem the least vast and epic to me. Still, man that dance scene. I've wanted to hear these thoughts from Kaladin since 2011! Such a beautiful moment.

Yeah, it's completely fair to disagree with my evaluations. (That said, maybe I should add that I'm a writer myself, so I'm not just looking at this from a reader's perspective but also as kind of a "peer" who has struggled with similar problems in his own books, although of course Brandon is on an entirely different level of professionalism.) Thanks for pointing out the Kaladin thing, I didn't have that on my radar anymore! The Fakethorn though is definitely a huge part of the problem for me, like, there's nothing about that one that works for me, even apart from the point I made about him undermining Dalinar's achievements.

It's hard to say what would be enough to make it work for me. For example, I could imagine that shifting the tone of Retribution's POV scenes at the end would already do a lot. We see the restrictions that taking up Honor has given him, but he's still gloating and happy about his new power, and he even gets his own Blackthorn either way, the very thing that Odium has wanted since the time of the Dalinar flashbacks. It just feels too much of a victory for him to make Dalinar's gambit work in my opinion. But I would have to read a version that changes that to really say if that would be enough. There's some problems that wouldn't solve. For example, If Kaladin's arc hadn't ended up at the exact same place at the exact same time, Dalinar's "genius" decision would have killed all spren. How would that have been a better outcome than killing Gavinor? Kaladin's contribution is absolutely essential for his gambit to work, but if I remember correctly, Dalinar did not explicitly know that Kaladin would be able to do this. This, on the other hand, could be solved by having Dalinar glance into the future while holding Honor and seeing the possibility that they could be saved. As far as I know, that didn't happen. So yeah, hard to say. I know I personally would like to change many things about the actual plot of the book, but regardless, I believe that it would have been possible to leave most of it untouched, just fix a few scenes here and there and get a more widely accepted and more satisfying ending that conveys the themes just as well and builds up hype despite not feeling as catastrophic as the one we got. But I get that many people like the catastrophic aspect of the ending. I just think that it doesn't really work with the "genius" part of Dalinar's plan.

As evident in this thread, many people see Dalinar's decision as an absolute defeat and the dumbest thing anyone in the Cosmere has ever done - and while I don't, it shows that Brandon has not made it clear enough that what Dalinar did was a good thing. He had several years to either figure out a situation that would have made more protections possible, or to make it the way it is now, but better showcase that the situation at the end of the book is better than all alternatives. Whatever it is, the reactions imply that the effect of "Dalinar's genius decision has gifted Roshar/the Cosmere a chance to finally deal with Odium" has not reached a sizable chunk of the readers. Yet it's what Brandon tells the readers via Hoid, so it's obviously how he wants them to react, but it's evidently not what many people feel. So he should have worked on better ways to get that point across.

My guess is that it would work kind of similarly to the Oathpact before - as soon as another conflict on the scale of the Desolations starts, they come back. For the time being, Azir and Uritihiru are somewhat safe due to the contract, but humans - like before the First Desolation - will find excuses (probably provoked by Retribution) to go to war with the singers again. I'd guess that as soon as that happens, the Heralds will come back. I expect it to be the end of book 7, since the front 5 also took 2 books for the main conflict to unravel, and symmetry is such a huge thing in SA.

I think that Dalinar's decision works really well on paper, but we needed more of an indication that his sacrifice was actually worthwhile. Like, some genuinely positive things that are direct consequences of it, and not quite as many that we will have to wait for book 10 to see if they play out in a way that makes it work. Hoid claims that Dalinar is a "genius" for what he did, but how is Dalinar a genius if the most probable outcome of his decision was that everyone is doomed? Brandon should have implanted more positive things to come out of what he did. This way is doesn't feel satisfying. But I really, really like the decision as an idea, and all the ways it plays into themes and arcs of the books that were mostly set up from book 1. Really great stuff there. It just would have needed more revisions to really work on page imo.

I had to let it sink in for two weeks and I have so, so many thoughts that noone'd want to read, so I'll try to keep it short. I liked it altogether and mostly enjoyed the wild ride ... but I still have so many frustrations with it that I believe that Stormlight - and I don't say this lightly - is, after 11 years, not my favorite story anymore. I generally think that Brandon has dropped many balls over the last few years, including Lost Metal, another half-baked "ending that is more interested in building up hype for books that are years in the future than in being a satisfying book". After years of Brandon's books being my gold standard in storytelling, I'm losing my patience with him getting more and more lax with (often his own) basic principles of storytelling (for example, the amount of hand-wavy moments where he just breaks established rules in this book is astonishing) that I'm fundamentally losing trust in his willingness to tell the best story that he could. Which means as a consequence that I'm not really all that excited about either Ghostbloods nor the back half anymore (at least considering the immense Cosmere nerd that I am). I generally can't be bothered to be super hyped about something that's 10 years off. I might as well be an entirely different person when book 6 of Stormlight comes out. I understand that this is supposed to be a middle point, but so much of the ending was so eager to make me excited about something that's just way too far in the future for me to really care. So it mostly had me annoyed because I would have liked more of a tidy cut, not like Mistborn Era 1 to 2, but at least like Final Empire to Well of Ascension. Instead of this, he gave us a book where a half of everything that happens is just build-up for future books (the back half and Sunlit Man) - all that happened in Azimir, Thaylen City and Narak was basically pointless for the Contest itself. Contrast with Oathbringer, where everything that happened in the book (interludes notwithstanding, of course) directly lead to the final battle of the book. It was a coherent whole. This book is a transition to something that I might possibly never read because I maybe won't care anymore in 10 years. Especially with how he handles things lately. Honestly, regarding Ghostbloos, now I basically expect that Brandon will promise dozens of amazing things in book 1 and 2, just for them to not matter at all for that series (just like the Southeners or the Bands did in W&W, or Mishram in Stormlight), and that he will end it not with an actually satisfying ending with a few sequel hooks (like HOA did, still probably my favorite ending to any story ever), but with a "well, you are all very excited to see where that goes in a decade, right???" Which I just can't get myself to care about. That on top of his weak prose (how many times did he use "fortunately" and "unfortunately" in this book?? In almost every case, you can cut words like these, and he gives them away like candy. Many cases like this where I feel like the editing is subpar), and despite all the great things about this book (that I'll eventually also write about, I'm sure), I'm feeling myself lose interest in my once-favorite author. I'll definitely hang around here the next few months or so to digest this book, but after that, I'll need some years off from his work and come back one day to see if I've fully grown out of it.

Stormlight was never about blindly accepting responsibility. It was about taking responsibility for the things you were responsible for. Even at the very start, in WOK, Kaladin is obsessed with the notion that he was in any way responsible for Tien's death - and responsible for all the deaths of the people he "could have saved". The books are very clear that this is something that he has to overcome. None of them died because he did something wrong, they died because they were victims of a cruel and brutal system that uses people as cannon fodder. The situations of letting go of responsibility in WAT are consistent with that line of thought. OB had Dalinar accept responsibility for burning down the Rift, and he did not take that back, in fact, he reinstated that this was his doing and his responsibility. He rejected another kind of responsibility - that he felt responsible for things that were not in his right to meddle with and that this prompted him to treat people in ways they didn't deserve (for example, Elhokar). Similarly, Szeth's redemption arc may imply that he lets go of the responsibility of his killings, and I understand that this can seem like self-contradiction - Dalinar had to accept that the Thrill did not made him do these things but he himself did them, albeit pushed by the Thrill, while Szeth had to accept that he was being manipulated -, but that ignores the fact that the journeys of both characters are complete opposites thematically: Szeth never rejected responsibility, even when he saw himself as Truthless, he hated himself for the murders and apologized to those he killed, he even weeped while doing it. While Dalinar tried to escape his responisbility, Szeth accepted it from the get-go - that was never his problem, his problem was thinking that he could never better himself. What I'm getting at is, WAT doesn't take away anything from the message of previous books that you have to take responsibility for what you did. I just emphasizes the fact that it is hurtful and deeply problematic to take responsibilities on behalf of other people - like Dalinar did when he took away Elhokar's power - or to take responsibility for things you couldn't have avoided - like Shallan, who mostly just killed out of self-defense and still beats herself down for that which she could never have avoided, especially the deaths of Tyn and her mother. And, furthermore, to believe that accepting this responsibility means that you can never better yourself and you are unforgivable. I don't think any of these claims are in any way in contradiction to the first four books. On the contrary, for all the faults of this book, I think the thematic work in this book was a remarkably well-done extention of the series up until now.

I think it's still possible that this is the character that Brandon said made the opposite decision. As in: The original outline had him rot in self-pity and reject any power upgrade out of self-hatred - but Brandon felt like there was still more of that sweet fandom hatred sink to milk and made him stay a threat instead. Imo, the most logical ending to his arc would have been him learning of Kaladin's presumed death and suddenly noticing how much that hurt him, then - since he's already in the Shattered Plains - he goes to the Honorchasm and jumps. Creating symmetry with Kaladin's decision not to do it at the same place on the other end of the 5 book arc. That said, I always knew that Brandon wouldn't actually do that (since he shies away from giving characters genuinely tragic deaths), although I genuinely believe that the story called for it.

Not much of a gamer, but my favorite multi-player is Smash Bros (especially Melee), and my favorite single-player is Okami. Special shout-out to Mario Galaxy which is pretty much flawless in everything it does - although as a whole series, I tend to prefer Zelda.

I agree with your Death Note analysis! Regarding Vinland Saga, it's a story that is to a large degree "about" the topic of violence, like, why people do it, what it does to the victims and what it does to those who commit it ... and it doesn't shy away from depicting violence in ways that for example Brandon would shy away from, but it's also not sensationalist or overly gory. It also touches some trigger-warning-worthy topics (as a huge theme of it is slavery), but doesn't depict those openly like GOT or Berserk. Soo, it's hard to really say ... It's heavy by the necessity of its themes but there's a line it never crosses. If a realistic battle sequence with all the things that can entail would be a no-go for you, I'd advise against it. But it's no torture porn, which is where my personal line is.

I've read some of classics of gothic literature for the "spooky season". I'm now reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray". A few chapters in and it's a bit hard for me to really care for what happens next story-wise (a problem that Frankenstein or Dracula, for instance, never had), but at the same time, it's well-written enough to still be a very entertaining read. Especially the dialogue really shows the influence that Oscar Wilde's writing style had on Brandon's writing of Lightsong and Hoid! Pure distilled snark.

My favorite manga is Vinland Saga, and my favorite story alongside Stormlight Archive. It's epic and tragic and beautiful, and it really has something meaningful to say. A bunch of my favorite characters ever, too! The anime is great as well, but I think it's a bit too colorful for such a rather grim and mostly pretty realistic story. Very, very close to the manga though. From what I've gathered, most people are satisfied with how the story ends, it's just that to many, the way to get there feels less convincing compared to the first two thirds of the story, which are pretty much non-stop thrilling and a pretty high bar to maintain.

If you're looking anime fans, there's this thread: And for Studio Ghibli specifically this one: Though that one hasn't been that active as of late, despite the Boy and the Heron and its award wins!

Brandon confirmed in the livestream yesterday that he had started writing it some time before (he didn't specify when), so the WOB I quoted above might actually refer to it - although he also said that it's about 120,000 words, while he talked about 200,000 to 300,000 in that WOB. And we all know that Brandon books never turn out shorter than planned. So I'm on the fence but believe that it isn't what he was talking about there for that reason. Further information from the stream: It's not narrated by Hoid, it's the farthest in the Cosmere we've seen canonically, and it's something he'd wanted to write for a while.

It reminded me of this WOB from some time ago: But we'll see. I still see Grand Apparatus as a good possiblity, especially since he talked about almost becoming a scientist in the video without much of a reason to do so (I mean, it was about Words of Radiance, but it still seemed kinda random), and Grand Apparatus sounds like something connected to Invention. Would be cool, but part of me believes that Brandon's not going to let the chance pass by to have exactly half of the 16 Shards canonized in Stormlight books (the three Roshar Shards and the four name-dropped in ROW)

I've been listening to an immense amount of Tchaikovsky's orchestral music (not the ballets) the past few days, particularly the symphonies. Some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard, but also sometimes just extremely overwhelming. You just need something to come down after it at times ... Which is why at this moment, I'm not listening to Tchaikovsky but to Ichiko Aoba, who's perhaps my favorite folk musician of this day and age. Also some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard, but on the complete opposite end of the spectrum