Starthief

That's a good point. Szeth's definitely felt like it should have been more personal. I really liked Adolin's part in the story, and thought it was very well told. The moment when he reclaimed his Plate, and when Maya showed up with the other deadeyes, were a couple of the bigger moments that really worked for me. When Wit was killed I was almost numb to it, but I did kind of guess he'd somehow managed to pull one over on Odium.

I will ignore 100% of complaints about fiction being "too woke." Rlain/Renarin really do not strike me as token gay characters at all. Rlain has to deal with racism, but also, he's a spy who turned on his own people because they never really seemed to support him and Kaladin did. Renarin has his disability, neurodivergence, comparisons to his brother, etc. to deal with. And they both have an Unmade in their heads, more or less. And their relationship crosses a racial boundary that is taboo to almost all of society. Compared to the issues of racism, classism, and sexism there's very little said in the series about the struggles of LGBTQ+ people in Rosharan societies. One could conclude either that (A) Rosharan cultures are much more accepting than our real-world culture, or (B) Sanderson did not want to or feel qualified to write about it. Possibly both. If anything, given how many characters have been in the series so far, LGBTQ+ representation is quite low (compared to self-reported numbers on survey results in the real world). But I'm not here to complain about that; I'm honestly more pleased that Sanderson has come around to more inclusive and compassionate politics. Shallan? Is great. Yes, she's a mess, but *all* of the major characters are a mess, it's absolutely one of the major themes of the series! My only complaint about Shallan has more to do with how very indirect the Ghostblood plot has seemed to the struggle against Odium. The Ghostbloods' motives and methods on Roshar have seemed very weird and it makes me wonder about Kelsier's sanity. But I guess we'll see more about that in the next Mistborn books. I also expect Shallan is going to end up as a Worldhopper, and may end up involved in other Shards' efforts against Retribution in the future? It's exciting to contemplate. I loved the format of this story, with the 10-day countdown helping to provide tension -- like it did in The Ring or Space Battleship Yamato. My main disappointment with Wind and Truth, if it's even really disappointment, was that the raw emotional impact of the "big hero moments," major setbacks and huge revelations seemed a lot less. Especially in the first three books there were times when I had to just put the book down and cry (usually with joy) for a couple of minutes or take a walk or something, even on a second and third reading. In this one I felt like there were some incredibly big moments for several characters (and Roshar and the Cosmere as a whole!) but they didn't hit me right in the feels quite so much. It could just be that I was trying to devour the book too quickly though!