urwhenur

I had some of the same feelings myself. Even though I read the book almost in one go, and feel like it sets up some interesting plot points for the second half, I cannot help but somehow feel that it is the weakest of the five. I also felt that there was a shift: a lot of time and care was taken in order to establish a diverse cast or modern psychological treatment practices, but some of the actual execution of the story did not seem as refined to me, or felt a little bit rushed. Some examples that come to mind are the loophole for the contract, the way two of the battlefields resolved (the debate, where I felt Fen was convinced too easily for having known Taravangian and where he stands on the same issues; and the Shattered Plains, where lots of expectations were set upon El and he did not think to claim the most important part of the city for himself)... and to some extent Azir, where I felt that Adolin fighting against Abidi with plate while being impaired as much and him not losing not being entirely attributed to the Emperor not having been found already to be too unrealistic, his expertise with a makeshift peg having come way to soon. In addition, I feel like some characters have evolved into charicatures of what they were shown to embody at certain points, where to me the clearest example is Kaladin, but Szeth also qualified to some extent. Kaladin in WoK was shown to be a complex character, intelligent and witty enough to understand political and strategic choices way above his station, with great potential to become a surgeon, and the drive to become a leader. Of course, while his emotional journey could impact his drive, confidence or desire to lead in that way, it feels strange to me to see that he would not know how a library is called, or conversely that he would find modern therapeutical proceedures so quickly from just some sessions back in RoW. For Szeth, I had thought he would be a little bit more complex and mature in a sense, and especially the final confrontation seemed a little bit rushed for me, with him immediatelly accepting to be truthless. Of course, this may have been due to the high expectations the wait imposed on the book, but somehow it seems the weakest of the first five for me purely from the execution: this time it was hard to be invested on the characters other than from the fact that I had grown to love them from previous books, and even during the resolution this time it did not feel as earned to me in some cases from the characters' perspective. It seems to me that these tendecies I have noticed steadily grew from WoK all the way into WaT, maybe due to an incredible writing pace and the time between writing each book, and the change in editors. Coincidentally, that is the order I feel the books rank at (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), even though the Sanderlanches were indeed amazing and possibly better than WoK for most of the other books. Once again, most of these are personal taste or appreciations, and I know for many other people this did not seem to be the case (or they felt and enjoyed the shift) and I am very happy for them! That all being said, I am glad to finally have a (partial) resolution for the characters' story, and thank Brandon for a wonderful universe I have found myself quite invested upon.