Returned

But, you are not alone. Which is why I asked the OP what they think of as the "standard definition" of the term. It is difficult to discuss a controversial term without a common starting definition. I did notice it. My complaint is less that the term describes nothing (I think it's obvious that it's not a genre or subgenre, but that's beside the point) and more that there are already words that describe the idea adequately. Language evolves, of course, but I think that "grimdark" is a poorly crafted word which debases English and accomplishes nothing in exchange. It's curmudgeonly, I know, and I don't dislike people who use the word (specific to the OP: I'm not angry or annoyed with you and am not trying to convince you or anyone not to use the term), I just think it's better not to. Sort of like if a writer were to end every sentence with an exclamation point-- maybe defensible in some formal or stylistic way, but why? I can't imagine it being better than not doing that.

I think that it's going to be a lot like Alethkar, ultimately. A society that has a specific, divinely mandated objective to produce the best possible soldiers for an upcoming war in the heavens. But I don't think that it's going to be all slave pits and gladiator combats. We've already seen that the Singers are very practical when it comes to their slaves, like in the period before conquering Kholinar, and I think that similar concerns will guide their new efforts. They'll need a lot of soldiers, and good ones, to wage interplanetary wars against magic-wielding, deity-backed opponents. Taravangian's aim is not to extinguish hope, and I doubt he even cares about that. He'll also have a lot of control through his ability to restrict his new light everywhere except the Shattered Plains. I do think that the new society will be more cruel than the previous one (all the better to stoke feelings and acts of retribution), but abuse and despair probably aren't going to get the results that Taravangian demands. Additionally, I don't think that writing that way is really in Sanderson's wheelhouse (though I am confident he could do it, if he felt that was what the story demanded). As an aside, I wouldn't call the second set of Thomas Covenant books grimdark for two reasons. At best it only describes a portion of the first book in that set (the initial return to the Land, and even then there are aliantha dotting the landscape and people have faith in the Clave, though their lives are still terrible). And, on a strictly personal level, I just hate the term. I think it's a lazy, uninspired, broadly uninformative portmanteau which at best was useful for a brief period when there was a fad of books in that mode. That shouldn't stop anyone here or anywhere from using it, I just wanted to gripe about it for a moment.

I think you're still doing a very good job in conducting yourself here. I'm curious about the lines you've drawn between religious and civic duties, though. I think that many would suggest that religion is not optional for those who believe. Believing in a religion often involves strong implications about the structure and nature of reality as well as a dominant and inherently correct source for moral and ethical considerations, and many religions have duties beyond the internal and personal. They are not generally buffets where a person is permitted to take the parts they like and ignore the rest. That is separate from walking away from a religious institution (something like "I don't believe that the official church is operating correctly given what the religion teaches"), but religions don't generally consider heresy to be valid (by definition). If God appeared to you, personally and in a manner which allays all possible doubts about the reality of the experience, and told you that your view on X was wrong and that you should instead adopt a view which was unpalatable to you, would you not feel that your duty would be to correct your position even if it were hard to do? Would a reasonable response to that event be to say "I think [some specific, other religion] fits me better, so I'm going to head over to that one, goodbye"? The idea that religion is optional strikes me as a very worldly and secular view (not necessarily wrong, but not something that the faithful of many religions can really engage with); that can only be true for people who are fundamentally unbelievers. Government, on the other hand, seems far more malleable to me. We can probably agree that a government has an obligation to enforce its laws, but what those laws are is entirely an arbitrary decision that government can make. People then have options like moving to somewhere with different laws, trying to change what those laws are, or declining to obey, but there is a lot more optionality to these than a divine decree establishing concepts of right and wrong throughout all of reality. It's possible to break a law without anyone ever knowing, while defying a deity's command is probably less escapable. Further, for millennia there has been a lot of debate about what duty a person has to follow a "bad" law while the duty to follow a divine commandment is usually considered to be absolute. For my part I think that we're always going to be imperfect in our understanding of morality and ethics, and that as a result we should be humble, open, and always questioning things and thinking about the topic. Society has to concern itself with practicalities, like finding a way for people with fundamentally incompatible views to live together, but that is not as true of the people who make up those societies. Seeking a middle ground is doomed to fail when one group feels that any compromise is intolerable, and in such a case why should another group compromise something they value just to not get anything from them? That's really where subjects like the Renarin-Rlain romance draw controversy. Taking them at their word, there are groups who feel that normalizing same-sex romantic relationships via media in popular culture directly harms them specifically because it presents those relationships as acceptable and normal. As I posted above, I think that taking those groups at their word gives them far too much credit, but their position is not different even if we agree that their actual reasoning is nonsense. They are not interested in compromise or any middle ground and will not be swayed, and at least some of them will use any possible tool to oppose anything short of their favored position (like laws banning such content, social pressure to make it hard to publish or buy books that feature it, and more). I respect your position and am glad that you have arrived at a tolerant and respectful place, but I don't think that a stance which says "it's OK, but it's not really that OK" is tenable given the reality of the opposition and the religious basis for at least some of your reasoning. (I am not terribly familiar with LDS or related faiths, so please take that last bit with more than a grain of salt). I think of your stance more like a point along the way than a conclusion. Maybe I'm wrong, and in any case "live and let live" is a great approach in the face of uncertainty, and it's hard to think of a better personal approach than compassion, tolerance, and non-judgement.

If you're looking for consistency I think you'll be disappointed. The easiest explanation is that a lot of people don't live up to their values (whether they are trying to or not), and often have not thought enough about the values they hold (or believe they hold) to even be able to engage with them meaningfully. A charitable interpretation is that they are developing towards their ideals but are not yet there. A less charitable interpretation is that they don't really hold the values that they claim, or that they simply don't care about living up to those values. I see both kinds of people, and in either case living up to moral standards can be very hard even if a person is clear on what they feel those standards are (which, again, most really aren't). It's also been my observation that many (maybe most) people base their ethical decisions on what feels satisfying to them, especially in the moment, which is a poor way to pursue ethical and moral consistency. U.S. culture, even secular culture, leans pretty hard into the same thing. Religion provides an obvious façade for that behavior, and so people's attention gets drawn to that, but my observation is that nonreligious people aren't that different in how they approach which things they think should be tolerated versus those they think are intolerable. So when there is a seeming contradiction a lot of people respond by shrugging at the big questions and doing what they think will feel immediately satisfying. You might be surprised at how few Christians really believe that lethal violence is fundamentally wrong in all cases-- it's not "pretty clear" to an awful lot of people, even if it is to you. There are so many situations where it feels necessary (like immediate self defense), and justifications that are deployed (if group X takes control of an area they will do all kinds of bad things, so sending military forces to fight and kill is the right thing to do), and theological examples that are less clear (the Bible, overall, is not exactly a tract opposing violence and contains quite a bit). A lot of things are depersonalized as well: a lot of people support the death penalty but I would bet that far fewer would be able to serve as an executioner. Christians, historically and at present in the U.S., are not fundamentally pacifists. Even so there is a huge world of media designed for people who feel like you describe, and that media is often far less violent than works that have broader appeal. You're simply less likely to happen across those things without specifically looking for them, because the lack of broad appeal means they don't occupy the same place in the culture. And, as above, even if people are convinced that nonviolence is right that doesn't mean that those same people are prepared to live in a manner that is consistent with that view. People fail to live up to their values every single day. They may make up justifications for the specifics (Kaladin was forced to be violent, for some reason, so he didn't have the freedom to choose the good thing and avoid the bad thing; nothing forced Renarin to actively pursue a relationship with Rlain and so he did the bad thing of his own free will, which is bad), but honestly I don't think that most people deserve that credit. I find that prejudices are usually not quite rational enough to be valid for a person to hold, and so such "reasoning" isn't something that you can engage with. When a person's whole moral justification is that something "feels right" to them, even when it contradicts their stated values, there isn't much more to understand from any line of reasoning.

That's sort of what Hallandren culture was, minus the breadth. The Returned ruled, sustained by Breaths from the population and spending their own Divine Breath to heal when they thought it appropriate, but they also stockpiled Breaths (as was the case for Susebron). I'd think the big issue would be that there isn't an easy way to decide what's necessary that everyone will agree on, and one objector would break the whole system because they can't be forced to pass their accumulated Breaths on. The "reservoirs" might also get haughty, since they'd be able to do all kinds of magical Awakenings while everyone else is just a drab. In another thread I wondered about something like this idea, and my conclusion was (tentatively) that Edgli is not interested in that kind of common-good orientation around her magic.

There are a lot of people that fundamentally don't like this kind of relationship, will always be shocked at encountering it in a story, will always demand an explanation, and will never be satisfied by any explanation because they for some reason don't like the relationship. A lot of people are less hardened about it, even if they come from contexts that are, and for those people the post might be helpful and worthwhile. Every idea is a realization at some point, everything a person knows they had to learn somehow. "Time ripens all things; no [one] is born wise." I don't know that the post itself is necessary, exactly, but if it helps the next batch of people who don't understand things in the ways we'd prefer then it's all to the good. I think that for all besides the most dedicated opponents/proponents it is largely an unmarked category issue coupled with variable plot relevance. Such people never pause to consider a romance like Adolin's and Shallan's because it's a default category that they expect. But they really notice anything else being present, often interpreting it as tokenism or "making a statement". Sometimes they may even be right in those interpretations (Sarkuin, perhaps, maybe Drehy though I don't feel that way), but most of the shock comes from narrowness of expectation and having to confront it for reasons tangential to the plot. Renarin's relationship with Rlain isn't tangential to the story which, for me, offsets how much of his on-screen representation thus far seems focused on it, but I can imagine a reader feeling confused about the (for them) sudden emphasis. Hopefully the blog post can clarify things for them until their initial shock over the marked category fades.

I don't think that the price can be that high. Like the other Unmade, Dai-Gonarthis has existed for a long time and presumably did more than nothing in the previous Desolations, but no planets were destroyed that we know of during those times. Additionally, what they got in calling upon Dai-Gonarthis in WaT was almost nothing: she moved a bunch of soldiers from one place to another, and that didn't even accomplish their goal. Had it worked, Taravangian would have owned the Shattered Plains and isolated Urithiru. Not something worth sacrificing a planet Taravangian cared about for, and if he can just point her at some planet he doesn't care about then the price wouldn't be so dire. My reading is that WaT implied that Taravangian would have to pay the price personally in some way, though that may not be accurate. It's hard to think of a price that a dual-Sharded deity would struggle to pay, or even notice paying, if it's something physical or material like destruction. I don't have a lot to go on, but based on the death rattle from WoK and Jezrien's thought in Oathbringer that Dai-Gonarthis might have somehow caused Dalinar's pain, my guess is this: Dai-Gonarthis connects to a person and nurtures sorrow in them either mystically, directly, or causally. By "mystically" I mean she transforms something: she takes something you loved and inflects it so that it only brings you pain and sorrow. Something like taking all the memories leading to Dalinar's pride and affection for Adolin and only leaving the bitter moments between them. By "causally" I mean something mundane in mechanism but important to the person paying the price, sort of like Taravangian loving his family and city but destroying them-- a direct sacrifice which can't be cheated because the price is the pain it causes you. By "directly" I mean something like Dai-Gonarthis riding a person and causing them anguish while doing so, which is the least interesting of the three but might be significant to Taravangian now that his injuries and pains do not fade or recover.

Even if a society proscribes something that doesn't mean it never happens. Jasnah and Hoid, for example, didn't really hew to the courtship-and-chaperones idea. Intercourse seems like something Adolin would have avoided (his position would have made an accidental pregnancy a huge issue) but I would be surprised to find that he'd had no intimate interactions at all. The rich and influential should have a lot of space to break convention, especially if they can do so discreetly. Adolin was happy enough to flout Vorin prohibitions on certain games, for example. Real-world societies have demanded things like staying faithful within a marriage and not having sex outside of a marriage, but it's hardly rare that some individuals just want a good time and ignore those. Sanderson's writing has avoided the whole subject almost entirely until WaT, where it was... less than elegant, I felt. I guess that whether or not those sorts of activities happen but only off-screen or if the characters by and large do not have that dimension to them at all is up to the reader.

Maybe eleven is Retribution's number, though I personally join many in this thread in subscribing to the idea that the spear replaces Jezrien's sword. It's not obvious how metaphysically prescriptive the Shards' preferred numbers are.

That's fundamentally what these express: The person who wrote these has said it's not a good representation of their position, so we don't need to harp on them, but that is what they mean as written. They present a personal feeling (valid), assert that everyone feels the same (not valid), and there isn't much else supporting opposition to the idea. There were a couple of arguments advanced, which I addressed upthread as being nonspecific to a human-nonhuman relationship, but those responses did not garner attention.

I think that that kind of was the point. The singers were used by everyone, almost entirely losing their agency at some point after Odium really pressed his influence into them. The few that broke free during the time of the novels had almost no ability to determine things for themselves because they had few resources and were caught between groups that didn't mind using them further. We got a little bit of their perspective, sometimes, but their ability to act for themselves was still really constrained by circumstance. Now that a group has the Shattered Plains for themselves and are free from Odium's domination (with a pretty big asterisk, I think) things might actually change. I look forward to that in the later books, and I hope that they will be stronger players in the story.

Provided that people would be OK with a human-human pairing between a human with the same IQ, which isn't obviously the case (there are levels where such a pairing would not be accepted, so it's not a species-ist argument). A gorilla with an IQ of 115 seems like a more reasonable analogy in any case, and I've never seen the question addressed. Which suits me fine, since as far as I know all non-human animals lack that capacity so the question isn't one that would actually come up. I have consistently said that personal feelings about the question are perfectly acceptable, and have engaged with the question as well (implying its validity). What I have noted is that a person's arbitrary, personal feeling should not be sufficient to answer the question for everyone, fundamentally. "The line should be drawn where I happen to feel like it should be" is not an answer to the question, though an explanation of why the line should be there might be. The arguments against miscegenation are not "outdated", they were incorrect outside of an arbitrarily pursued social ordering which was, itself, not an argument about why it was fundamentally wrong. But the OP has requested that we not take the thread in that direction, so it would probably be best not to drag it that way.

Awesome, thank you so much! I'm not sure, honestly. The cultural differences seem to me like something I could handle but I feel like I'm not imagining the impact of a being whose central identity persists but has such strongly changeable features due to their changing forms. Like, how much physical affection would she be interested in outside of mateform? Would it be enough for me, or conversely would it be too much for me when she was in mateform? How fair or reasonable would it be for me to prefer some forms but not others, and would my preference for some forms be fair to expect her to consider when choosing what she would take and when, and how well could I handle forms I didn't like as much if she chose them for extended periods? I have to imagine that there would be enough variation among individual singers that some relationships would be more workable than others (not unlike with humans), but I don't know if a relationship with a singer could provide the degree of consistency and stability I would want while also satisfying the singer's desires and needs (in the general case). Again, the "extra smart gorilla" category is, essentially, what humans are. If singers are every bit as smart as humans, and are not only capable of but inherently exhibit the abstract reasoning and conceptual capacity for understanding what a romantic relationship is, are capable of agreeing or disagreeing with entering one, and choose to do so, that's the line. If someone disagrees with that line they can express one they think is better and explain why. Philosophy is largely about logic and argumentation. But so far in this thread no one against the idea has presented criteria for assessing the question of whether or not it is fundamentally OK for a human to be romantically involved with a singer outside of their own personal aversion to it, or at least none that don't have pretty strong implications for human-human relationships. Again, it's fine to feel that way, but it's not addressing the question. People can ask any questions they like, it's not wrong to do so. "I, personally, don't like it" with no rationale behind it doesn't contribute much as an answer or approach to this question, though.

What possible relevance can this question have? If someone answers "yes" because they're fine with it, what response can you have besides repeating that you think it's gross? Aside from you thinking it's gross (which, again, is perfectly valid), do you have any rationale at all for why it would be bad? Additionally, why have you ignored the questions about why you wouldn't date a Thaylen or what about the Renarin/Rlain pairing is a hard no for you even while you state that you're ambivalent about general human/singer relationships? If you need an answer to the quoted question, sure, I could see it. I don't find the descriptions of warforms to be all that attractive, but the same is true about various human appearances and aesthetic choices-- I could kiss a human woman whose personal style I find unappealing, it wouldn't be in some way inherently wrong to do it. What about a human woman with a great cosplay of a singer in warform? I don't see anything fundamentally wrong about it, and that would be true even if I, personally, absolutely didn't want to do it. Wrong for me, perhaps, but not consequently wrong for everyone everywhere ever, automatically. What you've laid out in this thread is essentially the same as saying that (hypothetical example) because you think pizza is disgusting, eating pizza is wrong and you don't understand how anyone could ever do it and therefore no one ever should. I can recommend the Beyond series by Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, and there is a third that I haven't read yet), the third and fourth Rama books (Garden of Rama and Rama Revealed) by Lee, as well as (hesitantly) the Gap Cycle books by Donaldson. All have some pretty interesting alien characters and groups with some of what you describe. There are commonalities between humans and aliens in the first two groups of books which are recognizable and allow for meaningful interactions but also some fundamental alien-ness that makes them somewhat unknowable. I really liked all of them, though the Gap Cycle has some elements that make me hesitant to recommend them fully (as with all Donaldson books). But one of the Gap Cycle books (I forget which) has an epigraph/in-world mini-essay about trying to understand the alien psychology that is among the best truly alien representations I've eve read.

Humans are sapient apes, though I know that's not what you mean. I don't care about inter-species relationships. It doesn't matter to me at all if someone else wants to do something like that (provided that the other party is capable of agreeing to it, and does so). Your claimed arguments broadly seem off-base to me: not all romantic or personal relationships require sexual interaction of any type (including human-human relationships), not all human couples are capable of reproducing, a disease that can spread among different species isn't necessarily going to be only a sexually transmitted disease (and new diseases crop up all the time, from a variety of sources). You don't like interspecies relationships because you find them off-putting-- you find them gross. It's fine that you feel that way, but let's not pretend that your personal revulsion should have any relevance to anyone else, nor that it is more important than another person's finding it appealing. If it's all about the personal revulsion for you then it is exactly like opposition to the romantic relationships between groups you don't want to discuss. Do what you want, read what you want, like what you like, dislike what you dislike, but don't be surprised if "I think it's gross" doesn't resonate with people who don't already feel that way. In the first post you said you wouldn't date a Thaylen-- why is that? You also say you don't know how you feel about a human-singer relationship, but later say you find the Renarin/Rlain relationship disgusting-- is that only due to the warform carapace?

I think that it was the right decision. Stormlight isn't exactly lacking in awesome fights and is already bloated with each individual character getting their own showdown focus. I thought that Oathbringer had that issue in the Battle of Thaylen City-- the pacing was thrown off by including every major character's everything: the odds against them at the start, the promising beginning, the loss of momentum, the moment in which all hope is lost, then the rally, then the tide turning in their favor, then the cool poses and dramatic dialogue, then the victory, all done for each and every character interpolated between each other. It felt choppy to me and made the whole event feel more formulaic than was the case in the battle at the Shattered Plains towards the end of Words of Radiance. I feel that Wind and Truth had a somewhat worse issue with this due to the 10-day, parallel story structure, though it was helped by some of the events being non-combat and featuring some degree of downtime. Taln is awesome, but would narration of his fight be different from Kaladin's or Szeth's in most of its particulars? He faces a sea of enemies, dodges blows, strikes down opponents, takes wounds along the way, and so on. I did like seeing the scale of destruction and its impact on the siege, and there was some thematic niceness to a Herald (especially Taln) doing so much for humanity without the beneficiaries witnessing it, or even knowing about it aside from its effects. All that said, I would have swapped out one of Sigzil's sections at the Shattered Plains to buy space for Taln's battle. It would have been cooler and more interesting to me.

I don't see the basis for interpreting the epigraph to mean that Endowment was somehow prohibited from creating Nalthis (if she indeed did create it, which seems likely but not clearly the case); could you elaborate on that assessment? Use of "as" seems clearly to be a conjunction here, which would link the previous clause about "gifting the power of gods" to that which she was denied. The em dash might complicate things a little bit, but I would interpret "gifting them the power of gods" as a clarification of "bringing blessings to the people of Nalthis", so it should resolve to the same meaning. If that is the case then it seems to me that the only reasonable interpretation of what was denied to Edgli was "the power of gods" pre-Shattering.* So the timing of the creation of Nalthis is separate from that quote. I think that the best context we could get for why she waited so long to create Nalthis (or just go there and start endowing people with Breaths) would be to look at how much time passed between the Shattering and the Shardic creation of any planet. Specifically, was Endowmnet unusually slow or quick to create or begin operations on Nalthis? I'm not sure we have the information to assess that, though if anyone does they'll probably be here to correct me. Absent that context, the most immediate suggestions for why such a long delay that come to my mind are: Time is not meaningful to Shards. A century isn't much more important than a year or an hour or a second unless they are interacting with things for which time is more meaningful (like individual mortals) Time still moves in one direction for Shards, and they still require some time to get a handle on their powers (which we know from Rashek, Vin, and Sazed). Perhaps Edgli created a planet and people to live there as soon as she was sure she could do so successfully. This item would be greatly helped by knowing when other Shardworlds were created Retribution has conclusively shown that "duration" isn't meaningful without a frame of reference. Maybe the Shattering caused time dilation, and a few thousand years from Roshar's perspective was a much shorter period of time for the Shatterers *That interpretation is interesting because, while all Nalthians have one innate Breath, that Breath isn't enough to do much of anything by itself and so power still accrues to a small number of people rather than being usefully accessible to everyone. This suggests that perhaps the whole Breath magic system might be more about sustaining those powerful few, such as the Returned, than it is about granting power in an egalitarian way. Or, alternatively, it might be that, pre-Shattering, most people were the equivalent of drabs with no divinity to them and no accessible way to gain any. She may have determined Nalthians all get a bit of divinity for free, even if it's mostly useless (per our current understanding). But becoming an Awakener is still something that can be denied to individuals because the only way to get Breath is for others to choose to give it to you, and becoming a Returned is something that Endowment chooses to do or not do on a case-by-case basis. Something isn't adding up here, and I hope that it isn't simply a case where Edgli's complaint is that she, a deserving person, was denied godly power by authorities on Yolen and her fix for that is to use her superior judgement to more correctly choose who gets powers on Nalthis.

That's good enough for me-- the direct petition is much stronger than the "just in case" that I had vaguely (mis)remembered, if not quite a definitive indication of belief. I'd count Navani as sufficiently Cosmere-aware at that point to fall into my group one. So that's two religious characters who fit there. I wonder if there are more and we just haven't gotten the direct observation of them to know it yet. It's really only now that we know enough about the Cosmere for it to make sense that their perspectives be clearly presented like this. Does anyone remember any passages that would suggest group one members that have a religious aspect to them?

I think it would be a stretch to call Dalinar "religious" after Oathbringer. He has a very vague belief that a supreme deity with no particular properties exists, and that's about it. He's abandoned everything about Vorinism: the Callings and Glories, the roles/value of the Ardents, the theological model of the universe, the idea that morality and ethics flow directly from a divine will, etc. But I concede that you are correct with this example: Dalinar clearly does retain a religious belief despite his Cosmere-awareness, so that's at least one from that group. Navani's religious practices on screen seem limited entirely to drawing and burning glyphwards, though of course that's not exhaustive as she clearly was a devout Vorin at least up to some point. The glyphward burning itself seemed to mostly be before she became aware of much about the Cosmere outside of Dalinar's "god is dead" pronouncements, and had a strong habitual/"just in case" feeling to me. I might be misremembering some details. Do we have any indications, especially after her bonding the Sibling, that she retains any Vorin beliefs and practices outside of the glyphwards, or at all after Rhythm of War? If not, do we have any indications of some other religious belief she's adopted or developed? We know so much less about her beliefs and inner life compared with Dalinar's, so I'm willing to say that we don't know the state of her religious beliefs at present. Maybe she still has them, maybe not. As for Wit, "spiritual" is underdefined for the Cosmere, I think. I'm not sure we know enough about Hoid or his thoughts to render an opinion on his religiosity (I don't think that I do, at any rate), but I wouldn't describe a comment that he will wish for something or having ideas about hope as anywhere near what I would describe as having a religion. I'll call Hoid an unknown with regard to religious beliefs, but feel comfortable saying that he's never expressed a religious belief that he actually holds. (Similar to Navani above, my memory might be missing items here, especially for Wind and Truth). So perhaps I should revise my description in group one: people in this group generally seem not to have any religious beliefs, at least as represented on the page so far, with an explicit exception for Dalinar. Navani might as well, though it's not clear that she does. For all the rest, I think it works well as originally described.

I agree that the mythos is being lost, but I always expected that. You can't live in the legends, get explanations about the true state of everything physical and metaphysical, and still have the mythology be intact. A lot of characters know the true state of reality at this point, though to varying degrees. Even if the Heralds had been totally ignorant of Shards, the realms, etc. back on Ashyn and had their on myths or beliefs, how much of that would remain relevant (or even memorable) once they met with Tanavast and directly accessed his power? What sort of conversation or event would highlight that information in a way relevant to things happening in the books now? The big thing I've noticed about religion in Cosmere books is that it generally exists in two or three layers: Cosmere-aware individuals: these are more or less correct about the fundamental nature of reality, the Shards, etc. They don't seem have a religion in the same sense we don't have a religion about electricity: we know what it is and how it works, for the most part, and there isn't much room for mystery or mysticism about it. There are few such people. Professional clergy: these are the Obligators, Ardents, Court of Gods attendants, etc. They are generally true believers, but their belief is broadly incorrect. They believe in features of reality that aren't accurate and those features are generally contrived by people from the first group. There is a modest amount of these but they occupy a strange spot, narratively. Their false beliefs and professional/devout adherence to those beliefs keep them from playing as meaningful a role in the stories as those in groups one and three. Normals: these are everyday people, at least at first, with no special knowledge of the Cosmere nor the nature of reality. They may or may not believe in a religion, but the religions in the Cosmere books don't really have much for them to do. In Mistborn era 1 and Stormlight they essentially pay people to do religion for them (which is a large part of their religious obligations) and otherwise their religions are sort of inert in terms of day-to-day interactions. There are a ton of these people. For us readers this group can be tricky because we will know if their beliefs are true or not, at least most of the time. So a lot of detail about those beliefs is superfluous unless it directly interacts with the story, which shifts a lot of that information into the hands of group two. Notably, Warbreaker did some interesting (to me) things in blending groups two and three. I think of it a lot like Wheel of Time: there were no competing religions because everyone knew, essentially, the fundamental nature of the universe. They were all Wheelists, because the Wheel was actually the true thing and its nature was correctly understood by basically everyone, so "religion" in the way that we think of it didn't quite apply or make sense. Most of the Cosmere's major characters end up in group one, and there is little space (narratively and in pages) to focus on what has been mostly relegated to group two.

Heroic fiction is the natural habitat of the Mary Sue. They can be handled well or poorly, but if you can't stand this sort of character then Sanderson's genre is never going to be for you. As far as the "every major character survives impossible odds, nearly every time", that too is a trope of heroic fiction. It used to not be so bad with Sanderson, both because it didn't happen as thoroughly or as often (e.g., Mistborn). But at this point I think that the roster of characters is too big and the expectation/delivery of massive battles too well established for the problem to fly under the radar any more. Stormlight alone was enough to push things into this range, but with the explicit merging of Cosmere series I think it's going to stay prominent.

One of the most striking things, to me, in the earlier Stormlight books (especially WoK and WoR) was the representation of Kaladin's depression. Depression is used often in fiction, often enough to have some well-defined tropes and patterns that reliably appear, but I find them shallow and usually uninteresting. The external view (especially prevalent on television and in movies) tends to be someone who withdraws from everything, refusing/declining/unable to interact with other characters, settings, or events. Even though that's not an inaccurate representation I find it tends to make characters and events seem the same: a fugue which is more boring the more time is spent describing it because, from a plot perspective, it's inert. There is rarely much context around it. I felt differently about Kaladin. His inner dialogue, the way that the tone, content, perspective, and direction of his thoughts changed during a depressive episode, the despair and fatalism and anhedonia, the way it was attendant to other things he was doing and experiencing rather than a discrete item that could just lift out of the story-- it all landed for me. Very recognizable, accurate, well-described, and thoughtfully expressed, or at least that's how I feel about it. I was less excited about the next three books' treatment of it, though I wouldn't condemn them for it or anything. It seems clear that representation and inclusion were goals Sanderson had in these books, perhaps especially in WaT. I didn't feel like other things got as much depth as Kaladin's depression, but I lack the personal experience and context to assess how successful he was in those other areas. I'm specifically thinking about autism, sexuality, sexual identity, gender, abandonment, physical disability, and surviving trauma, but I don't want to limit responses. So if anyone here would be open to answering: if you identify with elements of the books, especially if they are less commonly represented in stories, are you happy with the representations in WaT? Do you care about the effort, do you feel well-represented, and do you feel that the topic itself was handled well? If so, were there pieces that you thought were especially good, and if not, what might you have liked to see that you did not?

I also noted a big increase in the phrase "what on Roshar?" starting with Oathbringer. It's not a horrible phrase or anything, but it (along with the stunned incredulity it expresses) stood out to me as a change. One thing that really bothered me in WaT is the use of interrogative sentences ending with periods instead of question marks. It's punctuation, not prose, but still. I'm curious about the editing and revision processes the books undergo now compared with what took place with the earlier works (post-Elantris, but pre-Oathbringer). I think this take is probably right. It rankled me more than the prose did, though I, too, feel that it has changed for the worse over the last several releases. The structure of the book worked well enough for me up until day 8 or 9, when I felt it had really started to drag. Too much seemed drawn out just for the sake of keeping parallel storylines going through the whole plot sequence, and it drained the dramatic tension to realize that nothing consequential was going to happen in any setting up until the tenth day. At which point everything was going to be tidied up at the same time. I was very disappointed when I recognized that Dalinar, Navani, Shallan, Renarin, and Rlain were not going to get back to Roshar to participate in events, and that 95% of what they did in the book was to essentially watch a documentary. I was very disappointed that, after the "look how dangerous he is" and "his presence will change the course of a battlefield" setup, El's big contribution to the Shattered Plains was to... bring more soldiers there. And Dai-Gonarthis, the mysterious and feared Unmade, contributed by chauffeuring those troops at danger of some unknown (to us) cost (details forthcoming, someday). I might not have felt this way if not for six characters' entire story (virtually, anyways) being in the spiritual realm. Which is now just the Tom Bombadil of locations in the Cosmere-- enough power to do anything you might want, but all you're likely to get from it is exposition. WaT has a lot to like, but I did expect a bit more than it offered.

I agree with your assessment of the relative shallowness of portrayals of mental health, as well as its increased prominence in WaT. I'm not sure I feel that this is uniquely a problem for mental health depiction but rather an instance of broader changes in writing style. Do you feel that way as well, @VirtuousTraveller, or do you think that in more recent releases the mental health piece is distinct from the writing outside of it? As for the specifics of what I feel is more shallow, I think that it really comes down to three major elements: Writing practices/scheduling (as @elihaun described very nicely). The refining and polish that might make some issues better just isn't happening like it used to. The desire to highlight various topics makes it harder to weave those topics in more subtly or naturally. These topics stand out by intention, for good or ill. A lot of epic fantasy adventure tropes and trappings don't necessarily translate well to some topics. People like the villains to be defeated and the heroes victorious in all areas. But depression sucks, can be difficult to address, and doesn't necessarily make for compelling reading when positioned directly alongside flying soldiers getting into magic swordfights. I think that (1) is the biggest issue, as more care and craft can make virtually anything interesting and satisfying to read about (subjective tastes notwithstanding), and Sanderson has demonstrated that he has enough of both to do things like that well. Recent releases have been technically fine but have lost some of the subtlety and organic-feeling development that earlier works displayed. (2) is a problem which I think might have been exacerbated by how long the books already are. Renarin could have used a lot more scenes to develop his character than we got, but they weren't available (for whatever reason). So over four books we get that he's smart, shy, withdrawn, frustrated at his poor fit into Alethi society, and unconfident all woven in with other events. Many readers believed that he might have autism based on his portrayal, and that was later confirmed in a WoB, but it wasn't necessarily obvious. In WaT we get a lot more specificity about the autism via explicit, expository narration alone, in relatively few pages and fewer scenes, and it is much harder to miss than in books 1-4-- it's the only thing happening in those sections. The contrast with how Kaladin's depression was introduced and developed in books 1-3 is pretty stark. (3) is the hardest issue to resolve, to my thinking. Treating depression is difficult and generally not rapid (as is my understanding, I am not an expert). The books glossed over the actual work of Kaladin becoming a peerless fighter with a spear, instead describing that he had spent countless hours practicing it in ways that most readers could easily conceive. Then we just accept that he's the best, even to a supernatural degree. That probably doesn't work as well for depression (practicing spear forms doesn't necessarily have an obvious analogue in mental health therapy) and would feel hollow (a serious problem is introduced and developed with deliberate care, then "fixed" off camera with a handwave). Plus there is a personal experience angle: far more people deal with depression than try to become expert spear fighters or battle with magical opponents bent on their annihilation. Issues with mental health portrayal will be far more obvious to many than would be the case for issues with magical effects. We don't have all that many threads discussing how shallow Soulcasting seems to be. It strikes me as a halfway problem. With Kaladin things started as a story about big events, dealt with by a character who suffered from depression in ways both relevant to those events and not, but wasn't a story about depression. It then largely became a story about depression but without the structure or underpinnings to tell it as well as the fantasy warrior story that was already underway, right at the same time that the fantasy warrior aspect of Kaladin dropped off sharply. More pages to set up and address the topic more fully and less explicit emphasis on "this is real-world clinical depression!" (or similar, for other characters) would have served this plotline well and would have represented the refining/polish angle. Instead it's a rougher presentation of the ideas, on par with the general trend in more recent Cosmere books.

He's doing alright for now, but I predict that the big issue he's going to have is that his view of utility is pretty arbitrary: whatever he says is best is best, so his obligations are really just to do whatever he prefers (and then pay any costs, as necessary). I feel like this has been amplified since his ascension. His reasons for why he must destroy the other Shards are essentially "I vaguely don't like the systems those Shards have imposed on the people that live on their worlds". His rationale for why his regime will be better have been pretty thin, so far, little more than just asserting that it will be better. I don't think that the nascent identity of Honor's power is ultimately going to be thrilled that Taravangian does a lot of what he does simply because he promised to do it. "I promise I'll rob your house" doesn't have the most palateable follow-through.