cvamoca

On 2020-12-27 at 3:13 PM, Vessel of Theory said:

 

Alrighty folks, here we go! Bringing this theory from its original posting in the Adolin Alone thread.

So, just to introduce the topic: Adolin. Is. Awesome. I don't think it's arguable. If I'm right, we were all pretty triggered in RoW when Adolin talks to Dalinar about the mission into Shadesmar. To summarize, it goes like this:

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Dalinar: Yo, thanks for going on the mission.

Adolin: Dude why tho, it's important.

Dalinar: Well, you're not worthy.

Adolin: You're one to talk.

Dalinar: Lad, chill. Listen bud, I'm Radiant, your mom's Radiant, your cousin's Radiant, your brother's Radiant, your friend's Radiant, your wife's Radiant.

Adolin: What are you saying? I'm just not good enough? After everything, I'm not enough?

Dalinar: Well, yes. Ya gotta be Radiant kiddo.

This passage kind of got me thinking, maybe this is that odd breed of foreshadowing so favored by Sanderson. And thus my Intent consumed my humble Vessel, and *poof* we have a theory . And it made me very, very angry, because Dalinar... come on! Adolin's upset that you killed his mom and never mentioned it. He has perfectly justified reasons for not being happy with you, and this flawed belief of Dalinar's that someone has to be Radiant to be "worthy" really just sounds like him jabbing back at his son, who's always been there for him.

Anyway, for the longest time there's been a debate on whether or not Adolin will in fact become a Radiant or not, and if so what Order he'd belong to. Most people think Edgedancer, but there are plenty of options with plenty of reasons. I've always been a fond supporter(and possibly the only one) that Adolin will become a Dustbringer, what with Sadeas and all his "take responsibility" stuff. However, SA isn't Keeping up with the Kholins, or anything like that. It's the record of a bunch of Invested beings and their actions, discoveries, plans, and emotions. At this point, I do not want Adolin to become a Knight Radiant, but it doesn't matter much to me right now.

I think that Adolin is going to become the Shard of the Rosharan System. This is the fun part, sharders. I'll outline my reasoning.

We need a new Shard, one that balances Odium, Cultivation, and Honor. Why? Because of the Recreance, the Desolations, the Humans vs. Singers, the Knights Radiant, the Spren, etc. If there was a single Rosharan Shard, one which balanced Passion, Respect for the Law, and Development, Roshar would be a much nicer place. Also, Odium wouldn't be able to just kill off all the Shards. Which would be nice. While I know that Odium makes for a great uber-antagonist, Sanderson rarely carries villains from one series to the next(never), and I think people are going to get tired of Odium, now Todium, being the bad guy. It just gets repetitive, if you follow my drift.

As for reviving Honor - Honor is a concept, a piece of Creation that can be Splintered but not destroyed. It is my belief that if an individual could become the Vessel of Honor, Honor would be un-splintered. Remember Mistborn? Preservation had splintered itself to the point where it could no loner resist Ruin, who then "destroyed" Preservation. Yet when Vin takes on Preservation, she is of equal strength with Ruin - proof, IMO, that a Shard can be un-splintered. We also know that a mortal being can assume Vesselship of more than one Shard at a time, as demonstrated by dear Sazed.

We also know, again from Sazed, that a Shard wants to be filled perfectly. It's almost as if the Shards themselves have Spiritwebs that need to be filled. When Sazed writes that he is trying to shape someone to protect Scadrial better than he can, he makes a prety obvious statement. Anyone can take up a Shard, but some Vessels fit better than others. Sazed, IMO, has made it clear the he intends to step down from Vesselhood and give it(probably) to Wax. Or, in a twist, Kaladin.

The reason I doubt Adolin will become a KR is that his Spiritweb probably isn't damaged enough for a Nahel bond to fill. While we know that "healthy" people like Lopen can become KR, it doesn't happen often, and Lopen still had his big 'ol issues(the whole bridgeman thing).

Here's why I think Adolin's the best candidate for a unified Rosharan Shard: He embodies each of them well. He is a creature of Passion, Dedication, and Growing. He does not believe any of them are evil or wrong, and they make up much of his character.

Think of the biggest events in his life. Helping raise Renarin, protesting Kaladin's imprisonment, murdering Sadeas, marrying Shallan, helping his father too many times to count, being a friend to Kaladin, loving Shallan and trying to be a good husband, trying to be a good leader for his men, giving of himself to help others, caring for and believing in Maya, respecting a dead spren(Maya), and so many more. Thing is, every single one of these examples, these important actions that at the end of the day tell us who he is, embody one or more of the Rosharan Shards.

I'm not going to list them out for you, but if you look, you will see. If y'all see problems with this, or WoBs that contradict it, lemme know, because I am not very WoB-aware. Looking forward to discussing this, and hopefully seeing it in Theory Thursday!

As always, smiley for long post  

Thanks for this topic!  Adolin is one of my favourite characters-- the one I personally wanted to be a KR far more than Navani, who just constantly annoys me! Thus this book irked me with our current cast of characters stuck in some type of limbo or another throughout this book. But the way you explain it, it makes sense why he wouldn't be a KR, as he's not so...damaged.  

He's a kind man, one who has true empathy and honour, with the exception of that tiny problem of killing Sadeas, I still consider that an honourable killing, in protection of his family. I love Adolin, with his fashion sense...;)  I've been stomping around storming mad that Navani and every other freaking Kholin is a KR, but why isn't Adolin? I hadn't looked at it your way, and I'd be completely thrilled if he became something greater. I pretty much am resigned to him being a plot device to get other characters where they are going, but again- would love to see him in your theoried role. 

 

Can I piggyback on this and ask does anyone know why Vasher and Nightblood parted- is that in a book or short story or was in in Dawnshard or a WOB? I enjoyed Warbreaker so much, he's one of my favourite cranky characters.

2 hours ago, NattyBo said:

Well, I hope that's true. I certainly am left feeling that Brandon wants us to think that Rock is dead, at least.  But such a casual throwaway line...I still think he's alive and kicking. Just not "Rock" anymore.

I just want one thing for Kaladin. I want him to get a big Horneater hug, and I want to believe they will meet again. But I think all the "unimportant" tier characters are going to just go away, Lopen's gone, Rock's gone, Teft's gone and Moash is...Moash.

On 2020-12-12 at 9:25 PM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Considering ‘Horneater’, I’m pretty sure Rock is okay.

It might be written about his life after his death. I think he's for whatever reason, being written out of the story. Michael Kramer's Rock was a delight.

On 2019-04-16 at 0:38 PM, NattyBo said:

Honestly, Michael Kramer does a pretty good job of Nightblood in Oathbreaker.  Since I'm reading Warbreaker after I've read and listened to OB, I have his version in my head now.

I really, REALLY love Nightblood's voice, as done by Michael i SA. "You really should DRAW me..." As a visually impaired listener, we need some change in character's voices, or things end up droning, and Nightblood's such a seriously dangerous sword, yet with a somewhat goofy voice.  IMO it works so well.  He pulls off a few funny lines in an otherwise gloomy book (RoW).

Listening to all 4 SA books over the last month, it's stayed pretty consistent. (RoW twice, just done second time last night...phew) I listened to the first 3 Stormlight Archive first, and didn't know Nightblood OR Vasher/Zahel's story until recently, when I finally listened to Warbreaker. 

I'm listening to Warbreaker right now, Nightblood hasn't spoken yet.

ETA- Doh- I'm in a Warbreaker thread...pardon my wandering.

15 hours ago, GameOfGroans said:

Certainly Kaladin would be very upset to hear about Rock's death, and since there's no such reaction in his POV, it's another reason to be optimistic.

On 2020-12-11 at 0:00 AM, Nymeros said:

He ded

Nooooooooooo!!!

I don't cry during books usually (The Dark Tower, Oy's death being an exception) but early in RoW, it said Rock "walked out of Kaladin's life, forever". or words to that effect. Which dragged a strangled sob from me.

Then in the end, I took note of the above quote, and wondered whether he'd been executed, exiled or made king. Still not sure but I want to believe he's king.

32 minutes ago, Penhito said:

I never meant to say that he would stop writing in response to criticism but rather a purely hypothetical scenario where he stops writing (for whatever reason, like a mental breakdown - à la Rothfuss). Or if it started taking him 10+ years to release a single book...

All I'm saying is that how much and how well he writes (as a whole), and especially how reliable he's been for the past 15 years, shouldn't be a reason to pull your punches, but at the very least not try to go for the knockout each time...

Keep in mind that I'm addressing the fans that generally agree that RoW was a very good book (despite its flaws). If you truly hated the book (not you specifically), or have mostly a negative opinion of it, then of course you're entitled to said opinion

Oh, is that what happened to Rothfuss? I didn't know... I just wondered where the last book was in that trilogy.

I think this is a very good book, I just didn't adore it like I did for The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. If you add those two to To Kill a Mockingbird, you probably have my three favourite books in almost 6 decades of reading.

I actually am quite enjoying the back half of this book the second go around, whereas when I finished it the first time, I kinda hated it, it completely exhausted me. So, my thoughts on it have already changed.

3 hours ago, Penhito said:

First time poster here as well. I think those very examples should always be on our minds to put things in perspective before saying anything too harsh

By no means am I saying not to criticize or not be allowed to be disappointed, but maybe dial it down just a smidgen? He's 100% right that BS has absolutely spoiled us from the very beginning. Can you imagine if he just walked away from the whole thing? (scarier thought than Taravangiodium)

Oh, and I liked the book. Pretty sure Kaladin is going to end up with Syl (romantically that is)

Do you think Brandon would be that childish, to walk away from a series because people had some grumbles about a book?  I don't believe he would, and I do believe he would completely understand when people bring up things they didn't love in a book. Doesn't mean we don't love his writing or this series, just that we didn't love this book or certain aspects in a book. You can't get better at something and grow as a writer, nurse, or president if you cannot accept constructive criticism.  Is he that fragile? Are the readers here also that fragile? I don't know him personally, but he's a writer, writers know people criticize books, and that it's unlikely that 100% of people will love something they write, it's just a case of numbers. 

On 2020-12-07 at 7:47 PM, Ookla the Mok Turtle Soup said:

Welcome to the shard! 

Nice analogy with the lead balloon by the way. 

The general consensus seems to be that most people like RoW. I too was a bit surprised by this, but everybody comes at this things from different angles and I guess what bothers me isn't so much of an issue to other people. 

I pre-ordered RoW, but I have yet to receive my book (crazy right?), so I listened to the audiobook instead of reading it my first time through like I normally do, and maybe that has something to do with why I liked it less. Kate Reading and Michael Kramer sounded a little tired or something, you could almost hear Kate's eyes glazing over when she was mentioning another facet of Voidlight/Towerlight/Anti-light, etc. 

I actually haven't liked much that Brandon's released from Skyward on, and funny enough I liked Dawnshard more than RoW, but Dawnshard is my second to least favorite SLA story. Again, the Akinah setting seemed underdeveloped. 

It is an interesting place to be in, not dying from anticipation for the next SLA book or not even really caring to speculate about what's going to happen in the next SLA book. I was all in before, but I think I might be drifting out. There's never been a better group of fans than those on the Shard, intelligent, creative and just marvelous people, but that's really all that's keeping me here. Just wait, Lost Metal will come out and I'll be an effusive fan boy again. Haha, could happen. 

Thanks for the welcome.  I pre-ordered it too.  And Skyward- which I absolutely loved because Dad was a lifelong  pilot, and the love of aviation is in our blood. I just felt like he wrote that book for me. But, I didn't love Starsight.

Normally I like Kate Reading and Michael Sullivan's narration, but you could hear Kate's  boredom in parts of this book.   I missed the humour of Rock and Lopen, and wish we'd have had a few funny parts in such a serious book. You need that sometimes.

On 2020-12-08 at 5:27 PM, Laramie Shaffer said:

This is my first time posting and I like reading these forums to hear peoples ideas about plots, theories and little details that I may have missed in my own reading. That being said I literally felt the need to create an account just to say to the people who keep bashing on Sanderson's writing and the direction he is taking with his books, keep that crap to yourself. You are entitled to an opinion on what you would like to see for the books and the series, but your opinion does not matter more than anyone else's and the fact that many of you seem to think you can do better as far as plot, pacing, etc then go be a successful writer who completes multiple great books every year and doesn't make his fans wait decades for a series to finish. Sanderson spoils his fans by how fast he writes and while not every book he writes goes the direction that I would like to see it go they are all great books in m opinion, which again doesn't really mean anything lol. So quit posting super long threads like [redacted] did above complaining about a bunch of things that ultimately don't really matter to people who want to know more about SA or the Cosmere in general. Go create a site that is a I can do better than Brandon Sanderson forum.  This criticism will have no effect on how Brandon writes I am sure and it is just plain annoying having to skip over all of them trying to find good posts that I can learn something from. The end.

PS don't ban me for this. 

I hope this wasn't directed towards me, also a brand new poster. 

I love Brandon's work in general. I just didn't LOVE Rhythm of War, for many reasons. There's no reason why people can't discuss what they liked and what they didn't like in a book, is there? On a forum created about the universe called the Cosmere?  We're not ragging on the author, just because we maybe don't love a book as much as you did.

You are correct, he doesn't make us wait for...20 years like GRRM does, or never finish a trilogy like Patrick Rothfuss did. (I'm still cross about that, Patrick!) Brandon is a really good, well rounded author who has created an incredible universe we all love. I don't consider what I wrote was crap. it's my opinion, and we all have them, including you. Your opinion is different, that doesn't make me wrong, OR you wrong.

I had to edit and add this.

Brandon Sanderson IMO is far and away the best world builder. His magic systems, the shards, the characters and worlds are mild blowing.

I'm listening to audio books, and they are a different thing from the printed word. ALL the info. I get is via the narrators, and thankfully through places like  here and Coppermind, etc. As a mature (old) reader, I know when I read words on a page, I absorbed it better than I do now being read to, but for someone who loves all kinds of fiction, don't want to live without these wonderful stories brightening my life. Even if I don't think this was his best book in the Stormlight Archive or in and out of the Cosmere, it's still better than most

I'm not a writer, and don't believe I could do better...there are too many poor writers out there right now, try parsing all the SHTF, post apocalyptic sections. Not pretty. Hard to get a non Zombie book unless you go back 20 years.

I'm visually impaired so I don't know how to quote clip very well. so my posts are a mess. (also I'm old) Can I stick around and ask questions? (Not snarky ones.)

I'll just note, that was my first post to this forum...I came to see if I was completely out to lunch and if anyone else felt deflated after reading this.  I won't live long enough to see the end of the Cosmere, or even to see the end of this entire series, but at this point I'm not that disappointed. My favourite writer just goofed and dropped a lead balloon that was supposed to be a book.

On 2020-11-24 at 8:29 PM, Ookla the Mok Turtle Soup said:

I finally finished this last night at 1:30 am, and I have to say that Row is, without contest, my least favorite Stormlight Archive book. Bolded are my replies, thanks for speaking what I was thinking! I'm older, love sci-fi and good fantasy, and I love The Stormlight Archive in general. It's the only series I own in both formats, as I can't see most printed page anymore.

I'm halfway through Rhythm of War a second time, and kinda really hate it this go-round, too. I absolutely LOVED TWoK and WoR, not so much Oathbringer because Dalinar's endless battles bored me and the Stormfather's voice is super annoying on audio.  I do like Shallon, though not nearly like I did... the murderous thing. I'm not a fan of her D.I.D, noted down below.

I've never cared much for Navani, and honestly her "I'm no scholar" line was as tiring and fatiguing to read as Nynaeve's incessant braid tugging in The Wheel of Time, or Perrin perpetually explaining how this tricky situation is like a locksmith's puzzle. Me too.  Navani and 95% of Navani's fabrial stuff,  just made me sleepy. I keep falling asleep during her long, drawn out boring scenes.   She's not fleshed out as a character, she just does things, or has things happen to her, like her children and husband dying, or Jaznah coming back from the dead.  I'm an audio listener, and based on how much I disliked this book, I won't buy it in print.  I bought the first three in both formats because I wanted to see the illustrations.  It makes it a bit harder to use your imagination when you are an audio listener, but unfortunately print media is just beyond my eyes now.

Imagine my horror when I realized that a seemingly unique and interesting villain, Raboniel The Lady of Pain (or rebranded The Lady of Wishes), is really just a life coach for Navani. Rabonial was my favourite part of all Navani's scenes. I wanted to know more from her than we got.

Major Criticicisms: 

This book suffers most severely from an extreme lack of fantastical detail. Brandon is a great writer, but his strength is not in creating fantastical places. His default descriptions for architectural forms are boxy or box-like. The majority of the book took place in the mythical tower city of Urithiru, the Ancient Fortress of the Knights Radiant, and with the exception of the detail of the Atrium, it still feels like a largely unfleshed out space. It's basically a city, and in the book there were really only 8 locations, the atrium, the pillar room, Navani and Raboniel's study, Kaladin and Lirin's surgery room/house, the model tower room (which conveniently became the place for the father of renegade Windrunner and personal attendants of the Last Listener to tend to the comatose Radiants), the breakaway market, the conference room, the Oathgate Platform staging area, and the Teft and Kaladin hidey hole. Tashik in a short novella felt like a more fleshed out space than Urithiru has in 2 books!  You just described every problem I had with the city in general and these last 2 books specifically.  If you are going to build a world this detailed, and waste pages and pages on superfluous details and plots, then build that world and paint it for me, please. Show my mind's eye what it looks like. Good fiction allows us to envision exactly what the author envisions. This didn't work for me for this book. I envision a rather boring stone fortress because that's what we were told, aside from the pillar room.

Shadesmar continues to be underwhelming, so sad about this really, especially with the very nice Michael Whelan art. Most of the time in Shadesmar was spent on a "box-like" barge sailing over a uniformly boring sea of beads, or in the "boxy" fortress of Lasting Integrity, with the one concession to the fantastical setting being the MC. Eschcalators, walls that you can walk up. But then again there's nothing interesting described on the walls that make it worthwhile walking up, so yay for walking on walls. Also the trial takes place at the forum, but other than the detail that their is a seated section and a standing gallery you really aren't given any description of the setting. I was incredibly interested to see what one of the largest spren cities looked like and see some of the details of how living ideas live, but the honor spren were just props for Adolin's show trial.  Shadesmar should/could be so interesting, if what I asked above was done, describe that world and paint it, in this case black and white. 

That's one of my major complaints, this book more than any other in SLA has canned situations setup to showcase how wonderful the characters are. Characters constantly telling protagonists how amazing what they are doing is, this is basically the author trying to lead you to certain conclusions. Admittedly Adolin is very sweet to Maya, but I got tired of all the side characters gaping at what his deadeye could do. Bravo Adolin, bravo. Did you just crawl into my mind?

Here's my thoughts after reading this book- I lost some of my favourite characters, because they were delightful in audio version (and we lost the humour, too), that being of Rock and Lopen. I loved TWoKs just so much...I lost characters not to death, but to being cut out or forgotten about, all so I can care more for Navani and the Fused?  Where's Renarin? Where's Lopen? Rock? Where's the humour? 

My biggest beef with RoW though is how implausible everything is and how stupid the plans that the characters come up with are. Urithiru is occupied, yet Kaladin can still move around pretty much wherever he wants, he just has to be careful. Raboniel was spying on the communications between Navani and the Sibling, but respects Navani's privacy when she is communicating with Kaladin? Dabbid, because people think he's slow, can go wherever he wants with supplies, fabrials, etc. even to the routinely unoccupied portions of the tower. This seemed slightly plausible after the initial occupation, but with Urithiru controlling the Oathgates, Odium should have moved the majority of his forces to the tower, and with the renegade Radiant being Kaladin Storm blessed it seems like they would at the very least be watching Navani, her scholars and Kaladin's family to try and figure out his whereabouts, and have setup a better network of checkpoints. But Odium in this book (and in Oathbringer really) is a pretty seriously stupid bungler.

Then there's Venli. Voice to Leshwi, ok, kind of convenient but I'll buy that. Taken by Raboniel to the tower as her voice, hmm, less plausible but OK. Given essentially free reign, oversight of the recovering Knights Radiant, oversight of the traitorous Bridge 4 listener (who can likewise move around unimpeded), that stretches the skein of plausibility to the breaking point. Oh wait, here's a blank writ from The Lady of Wishes that she could maybe use to sneak the comatose Knights Radiant out of the tower with. Snap goes the skein of plausibility. Once again, the tower feels empty, not enough troops, and far too easy for Kaladin to traipze around in. It bothered me a lot that the big plan to with the baited trap of the Third shield node to kill Kaladin was to have the purser chase him, and then after he took out the completely locally undefended node, to trap him in the well with a bid a big lid that a bunch of singers sat on. That'll show him. Great plan guys. Yup, yup, and yup. It was so ridiculously implausible, I kept laughing, but not because it was funny. Brandon what are you thinking? Vasher/Zahel should have been in that tower too, and should have been remembered. If I remember he was there, the author should also remember that.

I love Brandon's magic systems, and I really like that there is a scientific basis for them, but I feel like he's moving away from the highly successful mistborn approach and early SLA approach, where the solid basis for the magic is built into the magic system and the use of the magic by the protagonist is described in a way that conveys the realism of the system. With RoW and especially with the explication of the metals that control fabrials, he's gotten bogged down in the minutiae of his wholly fictitious schema, in a manner that I find tedious and completely uninteresting. You can't theorize, you can only speculate about what the ramifications of revelation are. Not very satisfying. I guess I have to read Mistborn- I stopped halfway through the second book because I really didn't like Vin.  It might be an audiobook problem though, because if characters  are given an annoying voice, it makes them unlikeable- like Lift in Edgedancer. Adore the narrators, but sometimes I don't like their voice choices. Kate somehow got an English/British accent at one point...why? Then she lost it again.

The Singer Willshaper book had very little new information about the Singers or The Willshapers. We know 3 forms of power?? Raboniel attacked Kaladin with a knife twice, why not use her power of transformation? The Listeners were a tribal society before the humans found them? Disappointing, I was hoping we would get more about the history of the Listeners, more revelations in the Song of Secrets, more information about past desolation, but their culture was as developed as the interior of the tower or the city of lasting integrity, mostly empty. 

Now the plans, dear lord, the dumb, dumb plans. 

Adolin, I demand a trial by witness, I heard someone walking up a wall say that, that sounds good. He has no idea what this means when he demands it, his is coached by a spren he doesn't know in how to proceed to do this, and he doesn't even think to have Maya help in his defense. Dumb as a manifested brick. Someone somewhere had written back in WoR (I believe) that if characters just TALKED to each other, so much could be rectified. That was even more noticable here.  Everytime Adolin failed to say something, I wanted to throttle him.

The Honor Spren appoint Kelek, the mad Herald known for his indecisiveness, to be High Judge. And they let trained monkeys drive busses, and give swords to children, and have alcoholics tend bars, etc. etc. Makes you wonder if Ishar was just trying to figure out if the honor spren's brains were in their backsides. 

Contest of Champions, do wait, this thing that the Stormfather has been leading Dalinar to for the whole series really, is about who gets Alethkar and Herdaz or Dalinar's soul? Those are the terms for the winner. Oh yeah, either wsy Odium is confined to Roshar for 1000 years, and since to leave is all that Odium wants, then he really knocked that negotiation out of the park. Ishar should have checked where Rayse's brain was too. 

Dalinar's plan, I know, I'll visit Ishar the mad Herald to figure out what my power's are, you know, the guy that advised Nale to join Odium's side. Sheesh, Ishar should check where Dalinar's brain is. 

Hey, it's still a Stormlight Archive book, which means it's better than 93% of all the books ever written. Agreed.  I just have this sick, really bad feeling that all the character development and exposition in the early books might not be worth a tinker's damn, because in the end Roshar and humans might be destined to fall. Spectacularly, maybe within these next 10 days.  This is more noticable to me because I just did an "all out, every book" I had  and jumped right into this one. It felt like we were going backwards- with all our characters regressing.

Poor Kaladin and Shallon. We could have all done with less mental illness in those two, and maybe more good stuff? I deal with this in real life, not a fan of wading through it in my "fun" fictional life.   Kal's just painful to read, even when things are awesome for him, another shoe's going to drop. As an old psychiatric nurse, things really weren't covered the way they should have been, especially Shallon's Dissociative Identity Disorder. (it used to be called MPD back in my day.)  I get what Brandon's trying to do, but it's not done that well or right, and that includes Teft's addiction.

However, I'm thrilled that he doesn't write sex into his books like GRRM does, which is just cringey to listen to.  So thankful.

The Good Stuff:

Moash. Probably just because all of the other villains were so inept, Moash was truly great in this book.

He says he's going to break the node, he breaks the node. He said he's going to deal with Kaladin and he nearly does. He had a plan to break Kaladin and if the Pursuer hadn't tried to get his vengeance it probably would have worked. He sees Teft is trying to fight defensively, so he kills a Radiant to draw him out. He takes out lift, he takes out Teft. All to be unchained, all to give into Odium's lie. He says he's going to come back to kill Navani and he would have if Raboniel hadn't drlayed him. By far the most capable and thoroughly detestable of Odium's minions. The part were his connection to Odium was interrupted and he had to face the consequences of his actions was so good!  I cursed at Moash quite a bit, almost as much as at Taravangian this book. But you are right, if Moash/Vyre says he's going to do something, he does it. He's one of the few who does.

Kaladin finally swearing the 4th ideal. I would have been OK with him deciding the 4th ideal wasn't for him, but I'm so glad that he can move on from this. His compassion is what makes him truly great, but now he is giving others the freedom to do what they think is right too. Good character growth for one of the very best characters in fiction. I love Kaladin, and his vision with Tian is one of the times I teared up. But I was so. damn. weary of his constant uphill battle this book, when he swore the 4th ideal, I really didn't care much one way or the other. 

The Jasnah/Wit/Dalinar/Mink some of that storyline was unnecessary and I'm not even sure why it was there, or why they were where they were, other than to keep Dalinar away from Urithiru...Speaking of which...stupid man, could he not have had their contest transpire in 50 years or something, not in 10 freaking days? Like, get some more Radiants, Dalinar before battling Odium?

This is why I think we're in for bad in a really big way, hope I totally misread this. 10 days? Hmmm...not excited about the prospect.

When I was about 3/4 through the audiobook which is 57 + hours, I was absolutely weary and just wanted the book to be finished. That has never happened to me in any of Brandon's writing, in any of his worlds.   Oh- did we hear anything about Azure/Vivenna? I think I might be missing some chapters, hence the immediate relisten.  I still hate it.

It's still an uphill slog...I liked Part 1 the absolute best. My least favourite of the SA.