Kenji

Alright, I'm going to preface this by saying I'm a fan of this book. That said, I'm not going to just defend everything about it blindly, but I'm going to go through the points in the original post and give my thoughts and honest feelings. The first thing I'm going to say is I agree with a lot of people saying that this section: really needed to be done differently. It pulled me out of the moment. I think he could have been brought back in and been so much more impactful if he'd said "I'm still learning that part." at the end, because he honestly is trying to learn. I feel like it would have been even better if Kaladin had said "I'm his friend." and was surprised to find that he meant those words. I feel like Brandon may have taken the "Kaladin Stormblessed: Action Therapist" meme too far. Second thing: Kal is trying. I'm giving him credit for that, but is anyone really surprised at how bad he is at it at first? Does anyone remember how he tried to help Bridge Four at first? He was the worst kind of jerkwad drill sergeant at first and I would have hated him for it, maybe even tried to get him killed on a bridge run just because he was being so invasive. By the time Lopan and Dabbid came around, though, he'd mellowed out and gotten better. I think that's the kind of change we're going to see in him as a therapist in the next book. Am I to understand these are bad things to say? Because I've heard each of them at least once from the mouth of a licensed therapist, to me, about my issues. Perhaps the reason these sound hollow or cliche is because you're too close to the subject for them to feel impactful? To someone who isn't a therapist maybe they sound like just good advice, because that's how it sounds to me, and none of them sound "too modern". Maybe they are copy-pasted from self-help books but almost everything that you can say has been said before; that doesn't make it pointless. Come on, this is just how Syl is. She's becoming more comfortable with being herself around him. Yes, it does feel like something straight out of a cartoon but that's how Syl, and a lot of other spren, are. I've got more of an issue with Pattern's "let's murder some folks" than this. Yes, it sounds like good advice to me. Is this not supposed to work? Is it just more complicated than this? I'm sure it is...but is this concept wrong? Again I feel like I've been told to do this exact thing. I'm confused as to whether this is just too on the nose for a fantasy novel or if it's actually wrong therapy. Can we decide whether we want things to be too accurate or risk being too abstracted from the real world concepts to be correct? Kaladin kept going, which is inspiring when that means he’s the spear that didn’t break, or when he’s the man standing up in the face of adversity…but it’s the worst when he's the one who won’t stop spitting out every therapy cliché in the book. Yes, Kaladin gets preachy and annoying. This has happened before when he's tried to help people and it's also a common thing with him to stumble with his attempts to help. I don't think this is meant to be viewed as a good thing. Overall, Kaladin's attempts aren't stellar, but if they were he'd be a Gary Stu. He's already a little too good at some things. I'm not fooled into thinking Ishar, Nale, or Szeth are cured or even mostly helped by him at the end of the book, but they might at least feel a bit better with him around or started on the road to recovery. Hopefully Szeth can continue walking that path, better without Nale and Aux around, and the Heralds can continue to get helped by Kal during their time away from Roshar. Hopefully Kal will get better at helping them as he goes, just like he did with Bridge Four, but we'll see how that pans out when he gets back in book six. Kaladin's not great, but he's trying, and he's better than the Ardents or, perhaps just as bad, BetterHelp. What Fanfics? I don't know what you mean. I was talking about stuff that's actually in the books...I've actually never read a cosmere fanfic before.

Adolin is someone who legitimately cares and accepts Shallan for who she is and whatever she's done because she isn't a bad person. He understands she had reasons for what she did, and won't judge her over them. He's not just nodding an empty head and saying yes to her.