AllTheEarth

Not everyone is a super-fan who reads all the novellas. Plot-critical things (like Taravangian confessing to Dalinar) have to be included in the main books. It would be just weird if the next book begins with "Dalinar reflected upon how Taravangian had confessed to him, a radical development completely upending his relationship to the man"). Also if the resolution of the romance plot-line got pushed off to a novella it would have had me in a murderous rage.

Oh!

Just finished it Sunday night. Thoughts: - Dalinar's arc is excellent, almost made me cry near the end. (Small nitpick: It bothers me when Dalinar's dialogue sounds like a modern young dude. Like, he should never use "like" like that.) - Kaladin's inability to say his words was also emotionally powerful. I noticed a few people wanted to know what his words would be: guys, they're the same as Teft's. That's why Syl's like "Oh, Kaladin" when Kaladin says "I am pretty down on myself. Maybe that's the failure that made me unworthy." - Odium as the humans' original god is interesting, as is an anti-human listener/singer Knight Radiant. - I agree with a lot of other people that the love triangle was unsatisfying. I'm a big fan of romance plotlines and often like love triangles, so that was disappointing. A lot of the most interesting angles were unexplored, e.g. Kaladin admires Shallan's ability to repress her trauma, but that isn't actually psychologically healthy, but also that's what keeps her from thinking about how he killed her brother. That's interesting! And it's barely touched on! The two of them go flying off on a mission *alone* and we don't even get to see any scenes from it! And they don't talk at the end! Even if it was only Veil who "really" liked him they should still probably talk about it! Brandon's never been a *great* romance writer, frankly.