Tahva4815

I think the issue with this plot point is it really weakens how scary Taravangian seemed earlier on. It was genuinely a chilling scene when he wiped out the city, but for it to all have been a lie I think is just lame and totally undercuts that moment.

I found those inner monologues baffling lol. I don't recall Kaladin making any sort of advances toward Shallan. Did Sanderson forget what happened in his own books?

The more I've let the book sit with me the more I think (while the experience of reading it was still enjoyable) I think Brandon Sanderson lost the plot after Oathbringer. I had issues with Rhythm of War, but I felt the character work with Kaladin/Shallan specifically carried that book, unfortunately the same could not be said here. I did not feel any of the character arcs in this book really landed as they were meant to. From a prose standpoint, this might be the worst written book in the Stormlight Archive. I thought hard about it this morning and I've struggled to come up with a sequence that has anything on the best written scenes in previous books. Part of the problem I think is that fundamentally pretty much all of the main characters had already emotionally peaked, I think Shallan especially could've benefitted from changing around when she discovered certain information. The biggest twist of the "her mom is a herald" thing isn't even that her Mom is Chanarach, it's that SHALLAN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR STARTING, but that didn't seem to affect her at all in this book, and the other major characters don't discover any of this. The heralds so easily coming back together at the end also just felt ridiculous. I think it would've been a lot better to structure this book somehow around gathering the heralds to explicitly re-form the Oathpact, versus characters who had openly wanted nothing to do with this for centuries, all just up and deciding "nah one more ride" pretty much out of nowhere. Dalinar's confrontation with Odium in this book simply did not have the weight to it that it did back in Oathbringer. I think Dalinar should have either fully ascended to Honor in Oathbringer, or he should have died in Oathbringer. He pretty much arced out and I simply did not really buy whatever his character arc was even meant to be in this book. Knowing Sanderson originally planned for the Dalinar flashbacks to be in this book, part of me wonders if that would've been a lot better, because it was so obvious once he got through his problems in Oathbringer that he really had nowhere left to go as a character. Adolin's plotline, while it seems many others loved it, to me was the biggest waste of pages in the book. Adolin is another character who, while likable, simply is not complex enough to carry that many pages of story. There's only so many times I can read him being upset with Dalinar before I grew tired of it. His actual role in helping the Deadeyes, etc, is interesting, but for most of the book he's not even with Maya, which is the most interesting relationship he has. If anything his entire storyline should have been about going and rallying more Deadeyes to his cause, versus Maya doing it largely offscreen. I did not care about the Azish Emperor or other extremely stock characters who all love Adolin because he's so honorable and awesome, simply bad writing. I love these books, I love this universe, and more than anything I love these characters, but ultimately this book (and to some extent Book 4) just feel like steps down from the first three books. I think the Fused/Regals also are extremely boring villains, and what was originally presented as a fascinating war where both sides had very legitimate points, kinda fell apart once all of the "good" Parshendi like Venli, Rabonial, choose the Human side, and we're left with just generic bad guys on the Singer side. I think it would've done the series a lot of good for Venli and Rlain to stay on the "bad" side to keep it interesting. Stakes also continue to be a problem, at no point did I believe that any of our main players would die, largely because they were all so spread out that I knew Adolin isn't going to die without Shallan being around for example. In the end, I think the the first three books are stone cold classics of the genre, but the wider the scope got and the more the larger narrative revealed itself, the more Brandon lost the plot. Gavinor is not a character I care enough about for the ultimate showdown to be satisfying whatsoever. I would've vastly preferred that he literally be a baby (the suckling child) and Dalinar is asked to kill this baby in cold blood. The ham fisted attempts to justify teenage Gavinor didn't work at all for me. In the grand scope of the first arc, many many things originally thought to be important simply did not matter at all. The Sons of Honor were totally ineffective and pointless. The Ghostbloods were entirely talk, I honestly don't understand their purpose or role in this story at all. Kelsier being revealed to be their leader was a toothless reveal since it renders them essentially good guys. There's a way in which it would've been a cool reveal if Kelsier (like the heralds) had been corrupted over time or grown to be a darker character, but from The Lost Metal he looks to be the same Kelsier as always, and its hard to understand what the Ghostbloods were really doing at all on Roshar or why. Kaladin killing Shallan's brother never amounted to anything, nor did Adolin killing Sadeas. Moash continues to be a "one scene a book" character, which is kinda baffling for someone who was so important in the first two books. RoW hyped up El as this huge thing for this book, but then he did absolutely nothing at all. Renarin had the chance to be interesting by being bonded to a "bad" spren, but the Sja-Anat spren have also been whitewashed. For all of the bluster, releasing Bo-Ado-Mishram didn't appear to do literally anything. I think Books 1-3 are absolute classics, but I was disappointed in book 4, and I think book 5 only furthered my view that Sanderson simply bit off more than he could chew, and at this point something that I always loved about Sanderson, which was how his conclusions were always setup by previous events, seems to have fallen by the wayside. I don't think there was anything that setup the way the Oathpact was re-established so easily, and how they were able to avoid the torture this time, which I personally thought was ridiculous. It would be far better writing if they have to go through it again. This book, coupled with The Lost Metal, has me worried about the future of the cosmere books. I won't stop reading these, because they are fun reads and I like the characters and world enough, but the idea that Stormlight can be one of the all-time series has been very much shaken. Waiting another decade for the next book, and likely 20-30 years for the ultimate resolution....I simply don't see how this story has enough juice or is deep enough to justify me waiting that long. I will wait, of course, but I no longer have faith Sanderson knows what he's doing. I think his company is too big, he publishes too many books, and he really needs to take a step back and focus on making the stories REALLY GOOD.

Odium still getting some kind of Blackthorn despite Dalinar's sacrifice is so silly. Just bad plotting.

Something else random for me, the overall pacing with so many POVs per chapter, I found rather bizarre.

Shallan saying she had rejected Kaladin's advances had me rolling. If looking at her once or twice counts as advances. I also checked with two friends and they both also got the vibes in the first half he was setting up Kaladin/Syl. It never went anywhere and I don't read the sample chapter so idk if other people were getting the same vibes but honestly I was genuinely disappointed nothing happened between them by the end, even though before the book came out I would've never said that was something I wanted to see so. Dunno, weird for sure.

Incredibly mixed feelings. Definitely need to sit with it for a while and maybe re-read some parts, I just finished an hour ago. Overall vibes coming right out of it: The Great: In general, I thought the spirit realm stuff was really interesting and well done. The backstory on the Heralds, Tanavast, Honor, the history of Roshar the planet, etc was FASCINATING and multiple times had me wishing for a whole book about like the Exodus from Ashyn, or the events leading up to the Recreance, etc. All of that backstory felt really well thought out and seemed to fit well with what we've already known. Szeth's flashbacks, and the Shinover stuff in general, was the other part of the book that mostly worked for me. Jasnah's story I thought worked really well, and I loved the way she was outsmarted by Odium/Taravangian into giving up Theylen city. I also liked how her relationship with Wit was resolved (for now). I was mostly satisfied with the main resolution, and Honor and Odium combining I think (though similar to Hero of Ages) was a unique and interesting way to end it for now. The Mid: The Shattered Plains plot was a mixed bag for me, I liked Venli's plotline but ultimately it didn't seem to matter all that much for THIS book, and I was hoping she would discover more of whatever this fallen moon was or what was going on with that. Just discovering Odium's pool was cool but again like....what does that ultimately mean for anything? Hard to say. Sigzil doesn't do much for me, and his side of the plot was sorta goofy. Moash I mean....what is even the point of him? I liked Renarin/Rlain romance but unfortunately think Renarin has never been the most interesting character, and it feels like Rlain has become less interesting the more he becomes just a side piece for Renarin. Idk. The Bad: Adolin's entire plotline in Azir. This took up SO many pages and just felt incredibly disconnected and pointless compared to everything else going on. Adolin complaining about Dalinar for chapters on end, teaching chess to character we don't care about, really the entire thing felt like a sideplot of all sideplots, I couldn't have cared less about anything going on in these pages and I was constantly wishing to be in any of the other storylines. Truly baffled why this needed so many pages, it felt like the most of anyone in the book. The "Huh?": -The old gods stuff definitely felt like it came out of absolutely nowhere, and was never really well explained either -Reforging the oathpact felt a lot less impactful then it should have somehow, just came off as way more random and bizarre then it should have. Also finding some Deus Ex Machina to justify the Heralds not going back to torture felt INSANELY bs. -Absolutely felt like it was heading down a Kaladin x Syl angle, which honestly was not something I thought I would be in for but I was kinda excited as it started heading that way to see how Sanderson would do it cause its such a bizarre way to go with things....but then it never materialized so. Kinda a bummer honestly. -Two different long predicted theories came true, I thought the Shallan's mother of it all was very well done for something that had long been anticipated, while Gavinor as a whole was just a big mess. Really just couldn't stand how that was done, and the whole "contest of champions" thing in general I just think was stupid. Everything surrounding that, and the plotlines of Odium and Jasnah etc using random Alethi laws to justify different loopholes, like trading the Shattered Plains to the Parshendi, or loopholes allowing Odium to take everything over, or the Azish thrown, just felt like such silly ways of the plot mechanics moving that I found it hard to take seriously at all. -Ba-Ado-Mishram, for all the hype, releasing her didn't appear to really be a big deal, which bummed me out. -The Sons of Honor and Ghostbloods both were really pretty pointless overall? It kept being brought up that the Ghostbloods would have some kind of attempt to influence the contest of champions but I truly don't see how they could have. In general the Ghostbloods stopped working for me once it came out Kelsier was behind them, unless Sanderson goes full on Kelsier as villain in future books I just don't see them working as villains. -The Heralds problems mainly being due to Ishar consuming Odium also felt like bs. -Never enough Lift. -Many things seemingly setup in Rhythm of War didn't matter whatsoever. Anti-Light was not made to be a huge deal at all, Tower Light did not do very much, and for the love of Adonalsium what was the point of introducing El, and what is the point of Moash? Moash hasn't done anything since Book 2. Three thousand pages of waiting for him truly matter while he slowly kills off side characters. Ishar messing with spren also felt somehow retconned into the Shinovar plot. I feel like originally Ishar's plot and the shinover plot might've been meant to be two different things. It was odd how easily that was resolved when it was such a bizarre thing introduced in Book 4. Overall a mixed bag of an ending. Szeth, Kaladin arcs felt satisfying, and Venli and Jasnah as well. Dalinar and Shallan clearly had arced out in previous books, and honestly I kinda think Dalinar just could have died in Oathbringer and someone else could have filled his role in this part, maybe Adolin. I liked the stuff with Dalinar but his final confrontation with Odium did feel....idk cheap somehow. Part of me thinks him joining Odium simply would've been more compelling. Still leaves you wanting more, but for how many pages and how long it was it felt weirdly inconclusive for how I expected to feel. A ton of the ending was just teasing book six. So much of it was totally pointless feeling battle scenes, and the I stopped trying to understand which fused were which long ago.

Before I start, I want to say I'm a gigantic fan of these books, and Mistborn especially was my first Sanderson and so my first love when it comes to this universe. I've really enjoyed Era 2 up to this point, and I found in particular The Bands of Mourning to be one of the best books in the entire cosmere. I had been eagerly awaiting this book since I first read Bands back when it came out. Unfortunately, I found this to be a fairly bland conclusion to the series. Personally I feel that Telsin and her relationship with Wax was not build up particularly well over the course of the series, and having her supplant his uncle as the "main" villain ended up being a detriment to the story as a whole. Largely I felt that a lot of things we were expecting to get clarification on we just didn't. Who really created the bands of mourning? What was Kelsier up to all those years and how did he come to regain a body, rule over the Southern Scadrians, etc? In general I thought the southerners would have a MUCH larger role in this book than they did, and I don't feel like this really followed up on the plotlines of previous books in a satisfying way. Everything to do with Autonomy/Trell I found to be poorly done. The info dumping at the beginning of the book felt like an odd way to reveal what had been a mystery going back to the first book, but then by the end we still don't know what these "men of gold and red" are all about, and it felt really weird that the Set had like three different schemes going on that were all conflicting. It was so clear the Set was a mess that I never felt like they were a genuine threat in this one at all. I also now think the cosmere (at least currently) is actively hurting the stories rather than helping them. In the early days it was a really cool thing going on in the background, but between ROW and this I just feel like the individual stories would be a lot better without it being SO in your face. My biggest thing is that it comes across like all the characters just read a ton of words of brandon between books. Every five minutes someone is spouting off about "investiture this" and "cosmere that" and it just reads as extremely weird that all these characters are SO knowledgable. In addition it starts to give off massive deus ex machina vibes when random powers from other planets are being used to solve Mistborn related issues. To me the whole Ghostbloods plot could have been excised entirely, and I would've much preferred to have Kelsier be used to actually explain more about what he has been up to and justify the cliffhanger at the end of the Bands of Mourning, which was just literally not addressed in this book at all. Furthermore, Marasi's storyline with the Ghostbloods was SO similar to Shallan's that it really bothers me that neither of them actually joined the organization. I don't really understand the point of having two characters both decide not to join the same organization and go through essentially the same plot related storyline. The characters were still well written, and the book never bored me, in no way would I call it "bad." But it didn't come close to reaching Brandon's highs, and it certainly didn't hold a candle to The Hero of Ages, in which every little thread in the trilogy came together in a beautiful and ingenious way. This book really didn't feel like it pulled together the threads from Era 2 in a cool or satisfying way. If anything by the end it really did feel like all of Era 2 was unnecessary and nothing much was accomplished at all. I get that Era 2 was never in his plans, but either he should've kept the story smaller scale so that nothing in the "cosmere scale" needed to really change by the end of it, or alter the plan, because it really came across like Autonomy will just be back causing trouble later, and it doesn't feel like anything was really accomplished. These are just my thoughts, between this and ROW I'm losing faith in the cosmere wide crossovers being as cool as I once thought they were. It was cool when it was a mysterious thing in the background, but now it just feels like its distracting from the actual plots of these books with a bunch of stuff that just feels sheohorned and weird.

Oh interesting I'd never thought to do that. Is there a reading order for that out there somewhere? I'll say that I did think the Wit epilogue was haunting and certainly left me feeling like everyone is way in over their head with T as Odium now. Watching Wit get got when he's been close to omnipotent up this point certainly got the point across.

You make a very fair point. I read WoA and HoA back to back years after they came out so I didn't have to wait at all. I basically agree with you and if the next book is similar to Hero of Ages in tone/impact than I think my feelings about RoW will change. Ultimately it is a bridge book and a lot of it is gonna come down to what it's bridging to I suppose. So I sincerely hope you are right and all this stuff pays off in Book 5. That being said I actually think Well of Ascension does have some similar pacing problems to this book, but where it succeeds at being an end of act 2 where I feel RoW fails is that at the end of WoA Sazed/Vin are both brought to their lowest point yet. Dalinar/Shallan/Kaladin/Adolin/Navani are all riding high at the end of this book. I think that's a bit of a disconnect for me, I truly wonder if Taravangian taking over at the end of Book 3 or halfway through this one and then things going horribly wrong for them wouldn't have worked better. Again it really comes down to the execution of Book 5. If Book 5 is 10/10 spectacular, all the weirdness of this book can be justified as a necessary evil.

I'm speaking more out of universe. As a reader, I need my villains to be threatening. I need the heroes to falter. I used Avatar earlier and I think its a good example, at the end of Book 2 the Fire Nation gets a major W and our heroes take a hard L. At no point in this series has a book ended with the heroes taking a hard L and the villain getting a major W. Its slowly sapped the tension for me as a reader, and unless Book 5 ends on an Odium victory I think Brandon is in danger of losing the narrative a bit. So to me it doesn't really matter the in universe reasoning for why Odium is fighting Rayse or whatever. Ultimately the story needs to be structured in a way that builds tension, and I don't feel like this book did that for book 5.

Completely agree and this is my big issue with this book. It feels like this deal is basically fine for either side more or less. I feel like it really needs to be all or nothing for the Champion duel thing to have weight to it. Part of the issue is Odium just seems like a fool at this point. He accomplished nothing of note in the past two books, when he's supposed to be the main villain? Compare him to Ruin, who absolutely ran the show for the first 2 mistborn books. The stakes aren't there for me.

Honestly I'm wondering if Cultivation isn't going to end up being the true big bad in the end. She has now succcesfully installed her pawns (Dalinar and Taravangian) as leaders of both sides, if Dalinar eventually becomes the new vessel of Honor, Cultivation will have "cultivated" both new vessels.

I guess I'm left feeling kinda worried about the *vibe* of the overall story if that makes sense. I don't really know how to put it but the stakes don't feel high enough to me going into Book 5. With Taravangian as Odium now what does the war even like look like? Most of the singer characters we met in this book were so sympathetic as to barely be villains. The first 2 books did such a good job hyping up this ancient conflict between Heralds and Radiants and Voidbringers/Singers but now it kinda feels like...a pillow fight? Idk both sides seem to respect each other more than they want to kill. I get that the whole series is ultimately the two sides coming together, but it feels too early for that. Really its hard to know what to make of this book until we have book 5. If that book ends on a downer I think this book will work better. If that book feels very conclusive than I think I would have liked to see more of a "Zuko during the Crossroads of Destiny" type moment from some of our characters here. Maybe Shallan SHOULD have killed Kelek and gone down the dark path. Maybe Navani should have just up and died and the tower gets totally corrupted. If this was supposed to be the Empire Strikes Back of the series it really didn't feel like it. Now maybe it isn't, and we're actually still setting the table for the real conflict in books 6-10. But it just isn't clear right now what the endgame is for anyone really and I don't feel the stakes. Obviously not close to giving up on the series, but this is the first time I've been truly worried that the cosmere is just getting a little out of Sanderson's control.

I mean people theorize on here about a lot of things, but I don't feel like it had been set up in the text how Taravangian would be able to pull Nightblood into a vision. Nightblood hurting/killing Odium had been brought up by Taravangian himself during ROW so the effect it had on Odium didn't feel totally crazy to me but how Taravangian managed to make that work kinda came out of nowhere. I liked the twist for how shocking it was and how disturbing the future implications seemingly are, but I also think it would have worked better if Szeth had gotten more screentime building up to this moment. It kinda felt like Szeth was literally just a plot piece used in this book to get Taravangian to Nightblood.