MicahLarimer

Watch the end of the Cosmere be the powers growing and learning and somehow combing without a vessel. Democratize the power yay!

Unfortunately my least favorite SA book. 100 200 pages too long. The best Brandon Sanderson is when his foreshadowing is done well, like me crying reading about Tien cheering on Kaladin at the end of RoW before Stormblessed says the fourth ideal. We knew he had to say it, it was just a matter of "how" and Brandon delivered . This book really didn't deliver for me as much on the previous foreshadowing. Where previous foreshadowing felt the best: Maya & Deadeyes - coming into this book the hope for me was that Adolin doesn't simply become radiant, he didn't, and instead discovered an entirely new type of bond (or lack thereof) which was thematically very on point. Not sure why we couldn’t get a bit more explanation on how the deadeye plate works. Plate spren don’t manifest as deadeyes? Where there was a distinct lack of foreshadowing prior to this book: Where the heck did the wind come from? Was that in the outline 5 years ago? Did Brandon decide to add that after he already finished RoW? It feels like an addition he realized he had to add after this book was largely finished. Where previous foreshadowing felt the worst: The contest of champions. Like what the crap was that supposed to ever be? The more I thought about the contest prior to this book, the more I felt like it was just going to be a big nothingburger that . . . *sighs* . . . probably involves a child. Why would Rayes have ever agreed to this if his plan was to use *checks notes* Moash?? (is he called Disco inquisitor now?) It was very clear this was always going to be some grand moral dilemma. And there we have the theme of this book, moral dilemmas. Moral dilemmas in books should exist for one purpose, to give the reader something to look forward to after the dilemma is overcome. I hate when i have to constantly hear the main characters second guessing their choices because no one actually has any idea what the hell to do. You know what part of this book involved absolute moral clarity - when a bunch of Fused walked in to a hospital to kill the wounded to demoralize people and accidentally ran into a 300-pound herald roided to the tits. That was amazing and EVERYONE AGREES. We got a couple pages with that level of satisfaction and probably about 100 pages of protagonists agonizing over morals or what they need to do. Rapid fire mode: Jasnah's part was just boring adults talking. I will take the battle over Theylyn field over the argument over Theylyn city any day. Kaladin and Szeth suffered from way too much redundant philosophizing, with a lot of therapy mixed in. I did enjoy the fact that basically everyone in contact with Kaladin benefitted from his recently discovered therapy skills. Szeth also skipping the fourth ideal was cool. Szeth's backstory - Did I mention the problem of moral dilemmas? I get it, that is a large theme of the book. The Ishar-god twist was interesting but the voice seemed far too normal to be Ishar, not to mention Ishar blaming an unmade at the end of RoW really tricked me as I don’t understand why he (a “god”) feels the need to lie. In that same scene in RoW he also appears to be utterly surprised by Nightblood, but he would know perfectly well what Nightblood is as he was the one who wanted Szeth to have it as a test?! Renarin & Rlain - Brandon still doesn't write romance well. Boring. Rlain was better at the end of RoW and Renarin was better at the end of Oathbringer. No interesting progress. Shallan and the Ghostbloods - I think this could have been done better, the Ghostblood just disappeared after the oathpact vision and were gone for like, 50 chapters? What was their plan with Mishram again???? The spiritual realm generally was cool and the flashbacks enjoyable, but really the only established rules we got were "you need to get an object to act as an anchor" and yet later after everyone had lost their anchors they all ended up just fine (sorry Gav you don’t count). Ba-Ado-Mishram - She ended up just being a MacGuffin . Her betrayal flashback was very interesting though, and a great explanation of Honor’s downfall and the Recreance (the latter was also well foreshadowed in previous books). Ultimately this isn’t so bad, she just needs to be well used in the back 5. Sigzil - You know I actually liked reading his parts after having read Sunlit Man. It gave me some odd shivers down my spine whenever he would get optimistic about basically anything, all the way up to him meeting Szeth’s former spren at the end. I was just waiting for the name "Aux" to be dropped. You know what, I really liked Szeth's spren, I hope nothing bad happens to him. I do feel like this sets up for the back 5 very well. The lack of payoffs with characters like El and Ba-Ado-Mishram can easily be forgiven by interesting uses of them in the back 5. Although the fake Blackthorn (do we have a comical name yet for him?) will undoubtedly contend with Moash (Disco-Inquisitor) for the most hated characters (by the fandom) of the Cosmere. I certainly anticipated a huge paradigm shift at the end of this book that would change the setting for book 5, and Brandon delivered that incredibly well. I still need to think more about how I feel about the ending, specifically how Dalinar would have known his idea would work as well as it did. If the contract is all broken, why would Azimir or the shattered plains be safe? If it is Honor’s power that restricts Retribution, requiring him to hold to the VERY BROKEN contract, couldn’t he just throw Honor’s power back in the spiritual realm or something? Break some vows? Dalinar’s death was good. It is kind of fun that most people don’t understand that his failure was intentional. Kaladin being assumed dead also sets up a very fun return in the back 5. Perhaps my biggest disappointment was one of expectations, I really wanted a neater ending, one that would get me through the next six seven eight years until the Stormlight #6. Alas there are still so many questions that have me thirsting for more. Maybe, if I can just hop into the spiritual realm for a few hours I can pop out 30 years in the future…. As many others have said, most of the plots in this book ultimately feel like destination before journey – Brandon knew where he wanted characters for the back 5 so he got them there. Regardless of the cost. *That last sentence should be read in an over-dramatic voice* WoK – 5/5 WoR – 4.7/5 OB – 4.9/5 RoW – 4.8/5 WaT – ?4.4?/5 - Granted my grades of Brandon’s books really take a year or two to settle in, usually after the first re-read. For me WoK has aged like fine wine and will probably somehow be a 5.1/5 by the time I die. I doubt WaT’s grade goes up with time. Thanks for reading my thoughts.