eriwancoselyn

isn't Shalash her actual birth name? I thought it was part of her character that made her go by ash. she hates being worshipped so she deliberately de-symmetrifies her name to make it less holy.

for me, it's not just the shard merger that makes it like hero of ages. I totally get that there are a lot of shard merges in our future. it's more the whole bait and switch of the thing. the person predicted to take the power ends up heroically surrendering it to ultimately do more good.it feels like such an echo of hero of ages that I can't help but compare the two. it's just that there are a million different ways to write someone taking a shard. there's no need to redo something you already did great in another book.

Hi everyone! Now that the first half of the series has come to a close, I thought it might be nice to have a celebration of all the great moments that got us to this point. You post your favorite chapter, bit of dialogue or character interaction and say why you like it so much. For me, the best moment in the whole stormlight archive is the chasm scene from book two. it feels like the whole story before that, including book 1, is building up to that moment. Showing us the aspects of Shallan and Kaladin as characters, telling us about the dangers of the chasms and doing all the world building to get us to that moment. Shallan and Kaladin's interactions throughout the whole book were great and to see them finally resolve their issues was so enjoyable. Ik it's enemies to lovers but I feel like this one was done really well. Shallan had a really unique relationship with him in that she was the only one who really challenged him intellectually or socially. Most of the other people Kaladin knows either worship him or are too stupid to push his buttons properly. Her showing Kaladin that she's more than just a spoilt rich girl, and his sense of happiness after that, might be among the most complex character moments that Brandon has ever done. And it feels so natural for both of them. it's a natural follow on from what we know about them up to this point. the imagery is immaculate. Kaladin and Shallan, leaning up against each other in the darkness while a massive blue storm rolls through the chasms. The chasmfiend, surrounded by hundreds of glowing luckspren as it eats in the dark. The two of them, wandering through the massive dark maze while something scrapes along the walls behind them... it has huge plot ramifications, showing the rise of the storm forms and the moment Shallan killed her father. It shows us that Kaladin killed Heleran, which felt insane on the first read. it gives us a conversation with the stormfather that sends Kaladin to his lowest point. Shallan handing Kaladin her shard blade was such a huge moment for the two of them, especially when you didn't know where it was going to go. I also love beyond words that the chapter where they get out is titled 'true glory' in reference to the death rattle in book one. it feels like such a subtle and personal touch that I can't help but love it. ik that's a lot. thanks for reading. I look forward to seeing what other people liked.

In terms of positives. -This was definitely a step up from rhythm of war. Though, nearly anything would have been a step up from RoW. -Some of the callbacks to earlier parts of the story were nice. I particularly like Dalinar's ending line. His ending overall is a different story... - A lot of the more strange moments from earlier books got some context to flesh them out. - Shallan and Mraize's back and forth was nice. - Adolin had some good action scenes. In terms of cons (I'm more then happy to debate these, pls remember it's just my opinion) - I think we can say that stormlight as a series is at its worst when it's dealing with character interactions. Things like Kaladin killing Heleran, Adolin killing Sadeas, and Shallan working for the GB should have had massive repercussions that just... never came. This to me is an issue that's at its worst in the later books. Brandon seems completely unwilling to do anything that would actually drive the group apart for good. overall, this has left me with a feeling of apathy when a character does something that should be important, because ik it's probably going nowhere. - The post above was right in that this ending isn't super original for Brandon. He pulled the same trick in Hero of ages. The issue is that the bait and switch was handled better in that book than it was in this one. - BAM ultimately meant nothing for the story. IK she's out there now but in terms of this book, it's gonna be really hard to reread the Shallan parts when I know it's not going anywhere for this book. - Szeth is def at his best in this book. His spren, on the other hand, is one of the most odd things I've ever read. The part about Szeth having to wait for permission to use division felt almost comical to me. It's especially strange when you know the truth about the highspren. - Gavinor ending was contrived and felt rushed. A bunch of coincidences happen to get him into the SR. None of it feels particularly earned or shocking. - I'm really not sure what to make of the avatars of Adonalsium. I worry that we should have been talking about them three books ago. Even the deathly hallows were at least visible throughout all of HP. I also really don't like that they have such generic names 'The Wind' doesn't feel nearly as cool as 'The Stormfather' or 'The Nightwatcher'. overall: I still like stormlight. Maybe the first two books just set the bar too high. This is a fine addition to the series, but It's not what will come to mind when I recommend it to people. 6/10

1. Mraize eventually is left alone to finish off Shallan and finds that he can't do it. Ends up working with her. This is a set up for later books, where they will have formed a Rosharan version of the ghostbloods. 2. Shallan's final truth will be admitting that there's only one person in her and the other identities are just her. 3. The ghostbloods free BAM but she escapes / overpowers them and is let loose into the cosmere. 4. Adolin becomes the champion in the final duel, given how much setup we've had of him being a goated duelist. 5. The line about Kaladin not quite being over Shallan seems very deliberate to me. I'm assuming this means Adolin needs to die but I don't see how that will happen yet. 6. Dalinar takes Odium and Honor, becoming the new big bad for the cosmere. 7. I feel like the death rattle about the knife and the babe is talking about Gavinor but killing him after you already ganked Elhokar feels strange. So I'm thinking he'll become evil / possessed by BAM and that becomes part of her escape. 8. Navini dies. My reasoning is that it would be a huge loss for Dalinar as a newly made shard and would send him down a dark path. 9. Cultivations scheme (whatever it really is) will eventually go awry. It feels like right now the plot will just warp around whatever cultivation needs and we'll be told that she set something up decades ago to make it happen. To be free of this, we need the plan to fail. 10. Szeth will either sacrifice himself or will become the 'homeland into ruin' death rattle, and be made to watch Shinovar be forever destroyed. 11. Todiums plan in the shattered plains will work, massacring bridge four and bringing us to a low point. 12. Vasher and Vivenna are going to get a scene at some point, though I'm not sure how it will go after seeing the new prologue. edit. 13. Some of the death rattles hint at a complete lack of functioning shards at the end of this. The 'three of sixteen ruled, but now the broken one reigns' rattle and the 'above silence, the illuminating storms, dying storms, illuminate the silence above' both seem to point to a lack of gods. The idea of storms dying is really interesting also. As a final cracked theory, I predict that all three of the shards will be destroyed / splintered and plunge roshar into a period of intense chaos. Either that or the three of them combine into a monstrosity that wreaks havoc on the universe, though I don't think that would actually have a vessel attached, cus I've got no idea who in the main cast could hold all three of the shards at once.

I think I've seen Brandon state somewhere that he stratifies the introduction of different surges so that readers don't ever have to learn too many new magic abilities at once. tbh, we probably haven't seen much of the dustbringers because he doesn't feel like dealing with the surge of division yet. we've also seen next to none of the sky breakers using division either. as far as in universe reasons, I'm going with the earlier post in that the ashspren just haven't made many new bonds due to a hatred of humans.

I'm not sure what to make of his lack of rhythms. it's worth mentioning that he's absolutely a fused but (to my knowledge), we haven't seen him use any of the nine fused surges. it may be that removing his connection to his powers have somehow damaged his rhythms, since we know that the rhythms are based on a connection to roshar. but at that point, you could just kill him and remove him as an issue altogether. handicapping him seems like a strange and unusual punishment. my only assumption can be that he's got some absolutely crucial knowledge or benefit that can't be given up. but if that were true, what is the point in handicapping him? also, and I'm sorry if this is too obvious, but the interludes have also given us another clue about the unmade. el says that dai gorathnis is the only method for teleporting if they don't have a corrupted elsecaller or an honorblade. the use of 'corrupted' is really interesting given that the corrupted radiants do different things from their normal radiant variants. renarin has some permutation of moelach's death rattle ability. the unmade seem to be a more extreme expression of a corrupted radiant. this will be really interesting to see because some of the unmade act nothing like the radiant orders they imitate. the heart of the revel and the thrill both effect emotions in a really non-radiant way. also, does this mean we could see corrupted radiants of some order making more corrupted spren like sja-anat can?

tbh, I'm not convinced that Toduim could even hold honor right now. We're shown with Sazed that he was able to hold both shards in tandem due to being able to intimately understand both intents. But the newer misborn books have shown that Sazed's power is a very hard thing to reconcile. He's struggling to keep the shards unified and the intents focused towards harmony. And he has the advantage of actually getting both of them on a deep level. I'm happy to hear responses, but I don't think Todium has a personal understanding of Honor. Throughout all the books, he's never even remotely tried to work in an above the board or honorable way. He unleashed the assassin in white, causing mass chaos. For obv reasons, this is against Honor's intent. He's always working in secrecy, trying to undermine the people that put their trust in him at the war council. To me, him holding Honor would be like Kelsier taking Preservation, the power is on a completely different wavelength from the person. Also, though it's hard to know what a unified war shard would want, I'm not convinced that the power of Honor would like the idea of a crusade to become the only shard. It feels like it would want to maintain the other shards, not breaking apart their power. At worst, the conflicting forces of Honor and Odium inside him would combine with his logical/emotional issue to create something even more impotent then Harmony, completely unable to take even basic actions.

Just to add to your idea: we know that Odium's intent doesn't entirely encompass war. RoW showed that the true war intent is actually a mixture of odium and honor. I quite like that because it maps well onto the real world paradigm that you were drawing; war is an ordered expression of these unfeeling calculations and the visceral hatred. A lot of wars can be started or continued through the unwillingness to abandon a bond (be that land, pride, or simply group unity). BTW My personal hope for Wind and Truth would be for Dalinar to take both honor and odium, becoming War. He's perhaps the only character in the whole series who truly understands honor and hatred on a personal level, not to mention that his time as a general would make it feel really apt role for him to take. Ik it's not super likely, given that it would go against his arc away from being a warmonger, but we've had some warnings that taking honor could be the wrong decision so a man can hope. also, what are the thoughts on discord? the dark side of harmony seems to be another shard of conflict. I'm interested if anyone has thoughts on how discord might mirror or differ from war's intent.