GroundPetrel

Harmony has a network of agents manipulating the events of society and has had them for centuries. Based off of Bleeder's motivations I feel that an Autonomy take could be "this guy is interfering with autonomy by creating a manipulative organization".

Gonna be spilling some tea here. So please keep in mind: A Sanderson 1-star is a Goodreads 4-star. I actually like and have reread all of these books unless specifically noted otherwise. With those caveats, here we go: ------------ Elantris: Hrathen is the only protagonist who truly grows. Sarene and Raoden are frankly already basically perfect and their plots are just Our Hero Brings Hope To The Hopeless and Our Heroine Fights Cartoon Misogyny, while Hrathen has inner turmoil and a more complex personality and a journey that's about him rather than just him doing something. I'll be touching on this later, but Sanderson's political sensibilities were not very well developed, IMO, at this point in his career, and the political themes remind me unfavorably of the teenage version of me who read this book and decided I needed to read this guy's entire catalog, stat. The magic system is pretty cool and the plot is well-paced, but on reread, I honestly kind of got bored of everything but Hrathen chapters and some of the Raoden ones in the middle that go into depth on the magic system. Also, I've come to be a sucker for "sad badass woman in physical and/or emotional pain gets hugged" and I don't like seeing sad badass woman die almost as an afterthought. One star. Mistborn: The Final Empire: This is a damn good book. The politics are necessarily simple: Insane Tyranny Bad. The protagonists are a quantum leap forwards. Vin is genuinely compelling as a scarred introvert way out of her depth but growing quickly into the role she needs to fill, and Kelsier is a brilliantly compelling character with charisma and a disturbingly compelling philosophy matched with gloriously chilling violence. The mood is evocative and compelling, the world sucks you in, and there's just enough hints of light to keep the bleakness from overwhelming everything. Four stars. Mistborn: The Well of Ascension: I don't actually remember much of this book, and IDK why but I've never really been a fan, never reread all the way through either. Some points in its favor: The frank analysis of Elend as a political dilettante now completely out of his depth and reliant on his introverted murder-girlfriend to fix 99% of his mistakes is a bold step and inarguably helps the series. The character building for Sazed is important and he's an interesting guy. Straff is...honestly he overstays his welcome, but as a total POS you just absolutely storming hate, he's effective. I wasn't a fan of Zane, and overall I mostly only remember the start and the end. What an end, though! Two stars. Mistborn: The Hero of Ages: It's a good finish, and the trilogy is still a fantastic coherent narrative ark, but the sheer bleakness got to me. I don't have much more to say, it's a good fantasy novel with an epic climax and a solid conclusion to an excellent trilogy. Three stars. Warbreaker: Spoiler is actually freaking hilarious and cute when spoiler2 realizes what they're actually like. Spoiler2 is genuinely fun and interesting despite being forced into a really uncomfortable situation. Spoiler3 is the best pet/child ever. Spoiler4 is both hilarious and full of genuine pathos. Their death left me in tears. Spoiler5 goes through a lot but they become a much better character for it. Spoiler6 is fine I guess, I liked spoiler3 much more than them. Spoiler7 should've been a LITTLE more present in the story to some degree, their plot came as a bit too much of a surprise there at the end. Spoiler8 was a functional antagonist. Because of the spoiler7 issue, I have to downgrade this to 4 stars even though I love spoiler3. The Way of Kings: Flat out triumph. 5 stars. Changed my life. Words of Radiance: I nearly died reading it because I walked across a green light in Manhattan with my nose in a book. Convinced me that Shallan was actually really cool when I spent the first book looking for female characters to like not named Navani. Five stars. The Alloy of Law: It's a solid fantasy Western. I liked Wayne. Didn't really grok Wax. Still don't. Three stars. Shadows of Self: Great villain. Political themes work. I still don't get Wax and IDK why. MeLaan is the best and I love her. Four stars. The Bands of Mourning: Great climax. The reveal of what you know who's been doing had me gleeful, because of course he's exactly that much of a troll. MeLaan is still the best and I love her. I want to be MeLaan. There's a lot going on but it largely hangs together. Four stars. Secret History: It's Kelsier continuing to be Kelsier because he's like if that crazy youtuber FPSRussia had a lovechild with the gigachad meme and this hypothetical lovechild told the entire universe "Hold my beer, I've got this". It's cool. Five stars. The Allomancer Jak shorts: Good period-style fun. Three stars. Exactly what they need to be. Oathbringer: DNFed first read because Kaladin's depression hit too close to home. Absolutely fantastic novel with strong character work and an epic conclusion. Dalinar's flashbacks push it to five stars. I want Adolin to hug me. Also, my friend was immortalized in history for asking Sanderson if Szeth would get a puppy in this one and was told he'd get something like a puppy, which is technically true. Rhythm of War: There are some pacing issues and there's a lot going on with not all of it getting attention, but Adolin is best boy. He's like Raoden but with more depth that you can see actually affecting his character, and a different approach to being pure good. Ishar is scary. Raboniel is scary. Moash is the new "storm that cremling, we hate him" guy, and he fills the boots well. Kaladin finally makes a breakthrough. Navani is great. This one really shows Sanderson's politics evolving, and I like where they seem to be going. There's a general shift from broad Obviously Evil Society being fought by Modern Forward-Thinking Protagonist towards a systems-focused progressive approach typefied by Jasnah's commentary on monarchy. I like that. Overall, the book is pretty damn good, but I have to give it 4 stars because the pacing and division of time are really slipping in places. Edgedancer: I love Lift. I got a whole novella of Lift being Lift. I'm happy. 5 stars. Dawnshard: Rysn is pretty neat. I love The Lopen. Didn't really hook me but it's good. 4 stars. Steelheart: Mistborn with superheroes. I dig it. Cool powers, inventive fights, a great setting, the protagonist is OK. Three stars, but that ending rocked. Firefight: I wasn't really getting into it until the end. Two stars, though that's definitely personal bias. The main villains were solid and I like the exploration of how Epics work, but for whatever reason I just wasn't engaging. Calamity: Feels almost perfunctory compared to The Hero of Ages, but it was going pretty well until the ending, which I felt was actually a bit too happily-ever-after. My personal bias again, I can't really put a finger on WHY I feel this way about it. Three stars. The Threnody one with Silence: Good story. Tense. Strong thematic feel. Four stars. Sixth of the Dusk: Good protagonist, probably the only strong silent main hero I feel real emotions for. Nice tight story that explores a cool magic system. Good feel of tension and a dangeorus environment. Also, I like birds. Five stars for magic birds. The Emperor's Soul: Good self contained story with two good characters having good interactions. Four stars. Dark One (graphic novel): Cool world, mom protag's plot rocks, not enough depth in kid protag's plot. I don't care about Mirandus as much as I do Scadrial or Roshar. This needed to either be MASSIVELY expanded, or it needed to be a full Sanderson doorstopper novel. Three stars, but frankly the mom's plot is 5 stars, with a compelling protagonist and chilling villain. Skyward: It's too Modern YA-y for me. Which is weird, because I still regularly reread YA from other authors and like it (esp. Protector of the Small). I didn't connect with Spensa as much as with most Sanderson protags. Two stars. Starsight: Good take on imperialism and racism through sci-fi. It's been done, but it's done well here. Still not connecting with Spensa. 3 stars. Cytonic: This one gets 4 stars even though I still don't connect with Spensa much because spoiler the spoiler (you know, the spoilers from spoiler) is storming awesome. Sanderson's wacky-character-with-pathos archetype is almost always a winner for me. Ending is better than it has to be, and has a good theme. 4 stars. Sanderson WOT books: The Gathering Storm: Mat's character shift in these three books IS jarring, but I like both approaches. Finally something's happening and Rand's personal psychological journey is making real progress. Taim continues to be such an obvious Starscream throughout all three I don't think I need to be too circumspect about him. Three stars, but only because Sanderson is clearly finding his feet in this one and he doesn't have the character voices quite right yet IMO. Towers of Midnight: Two particularly tear-worthy deaths, I'm not sure the sexual violence element was really needed (but then, I don't like the majority of sexual violence elements outside of ASOIAF where it's used to show the lack of value for humanity inherent in the system), finally Perrin and Faile have something to do and Faile is less awful, Mat is some hybrid of a James Bond parody, FPSRussia, and the gigachad meme incarnate, Rand rocks, Egwene is finally not too annoying. Four stars. A Memory of Light: This is an absolutely freaking mammoth undertaking for any author and anything better than "a book that exists" would've been a triumph worthy of a major award. I think that all my thoughts can be summed up by spoiler's scene with the refugees. This is an epic that remembers the human element, the little guys, the ones whose small stories of going from a villain literally mad with power they didn't ask for or want, to a broken person just trying to find a new purpose in life, to someone consciously making the decision to do good out of pure altruism and realizing that it is really worth it, come together into a whole that really speaks to something in my heart. All the main characters get great sendoffs and do badass things that make me cry. Four stars, but only because I hate empress smug jerkface that freaking much and hate that she got no comeuppance for being the literal worst person not actively on the side of the literal malign demiurge. Also, Lan steals the gigachad meme from Mat and it's badass. Unfinished projects: Mythwalker: Cannibalizing this for parts that got plugged into Warbreaker, Way of Kings, and Mistborn was the right idea. The protagonist is basically Kaladin without the depth or personality, his mom needs a plot but doesn't have room for one, the villain is basically just a total POS with no depth or motivation outside of just being the absolute biggest POS in the world, the Obi-Wanning of you know who was handled 1000% better in Stormlight, and Sanderson was right to quit this and rework the cool elements into better books, because once you know from his other books (that he cannibalized elements of this for) how the story's going to end, there's basically no way forward for a sequel in a story that clearly requires one. No star rating because I don't judge unfinished books, and everybody including the guy who wrote it knew it was time to stop and cannibalize, because he's a really good author and knows his stuff. That said, despite the problems this still has Sanderson's strong voice and good pacing. -------------------- What are your thoughts? Got a bone to pick with some of these? (that's totally cool, these are just my opinions).

Trickster was a duology. Pretty well written but the divine patron is such a dick (the protagonist does call him out but I still hate him). Provost's Dog 1 and 2 are solid, 3 is a hot mess. Protector of the Small rocks. Wild Mage--I love the second one. Definitely not because I love transformation fantasy and animals and latent gender issues. No siree. The other three were meh at best. though 3 had a fun bit with undead dinosaurs, that was cool.

Exactly. The COVID hiccup, the forced rushed production of 7 and 8, the cramped pacing, all hit it hard. Everything else (casting especially--Mat, Lan, and Moiraine are standouts but Nyn is pretty damned standout too, and they all rock) is at worst "fine". Side note--I know that people got angry about Moiraine getting a bit public with her and Siuan's BDSM thing, but honestly? The live-action audience NEEDS that bit. It wouldn't work in a BOOK, but it is needed for TV imo.

hey, your writing is solid and I'm a sucker for anything Adolin related.

I don't really count that as a bad thing, it's honestly kind of refreshing to see books for teenagers dealing with teenage hormones. My main issues with everything of hers I've read but Protector of the Small are more that Provost's Dog's third book sucked, Trickster was unreadable for me because Kyprioth was a scum bucket (the books were fine, just that one character annoyed the hell out of me), I didn't actually like Wild Mage except for book 2 (the one where she turns into a wolf, HUH I WONDER WHY I LIKE EVERYTHING THAT INVOLVES SHAPESHIFTERS, SURELY IT'S NOT A GENDER THING), and Song of the Lioness is dated and clunky at times. Protector of the Small is still a regular reread for me when I'm able to read, though.

Anyway yeah thanks for reassuring me, guys, you're all so sweet.

Isn't Ambition though?

Odium would wait a generation then use angry humans on the bottom rung to find a nascent Kelsier expy, warp them to his side, and use them as a dark messiah to overthrow the Singer hierarchy while strategically weakening "his" own side, then turn it all into a genocide of singers, then flip back to the singers again a generation or two down the line, etc. Warping justified anger at oppression into mindless hate seems to me to have been a thing Rayse did a lot.

You know what's wild? I would legitimately read the Terry Pratchett version. That sounds pretty freaking cool.

Also, Dalinar isn't greedy, Dalinar's an addict and a workaholic who has trouble giving up control. (hmm, now that gives me a fanfic idea. Thanks, Inner Navani.) Adolin and Renarin grew up in the land of toxic masculinity being neglected by an addict. They're two kids who grew up in a crack house surrounded by macho bullies. Adolin grew up too fast by necessity and has a lot of baggage from that; Renarin is clearly really really smart and has enough inward-facing smarts to recognize how he and his brother are and train himself to function as an adult human being, something Adolin does not have. Dalinar only started being a judgemental cremling to Adolin recently, because he's an insecure addict who's terrified of his kids going the same way. (I don't want to completely derail this thread, but the fundamental point is that Adolin and Renarin are screwed up in ways very different from how Kaladin is, because their father's mistreatment of them was just neglect rather than browbeating and hyper-judgementalism until quite recently). Lirin otoh spent Kaladin's entire childhood and adolescence telling him what to be, judging him harshly if he didn't conform to Lirin's narrow standards of appropriate behavior and interests, and got into a social conflict he had zero hope of winning against a man with far more power (legal and otherwise) than Lirin could ever hope to have, so that he could live vicariously through Kaladin. Kaladin is still deeply messed up by this, and Lirin's stupid ego got Tien killed, which honestly hurt Kal even MORE.

Lirin would be the best dad in the series if he shaped up a lot. Dalinar was just neglectful as far as his impact on Adolin and Renarin goes, and he has acknowledged that he neglected Renarin (though now he's more actively emotionally suppressive to Adolin, which he needs to shape up on). They supported each other and came out mostly functional, in fact I would say that Renarin is basically emotionally healthy on a fundamental level and has good means of coping with a nightmarish situation, while Adolin's baggage manifests mostly as self-deprecation and reflexive kindness. Lirin is a domineering uncompromising ass who got one of his kids killed and emotionally abused the other (who's STILL messed up) in his pursuit of his dream of having a surgeon son.

Yeah. Context was "he's a friendly badass swordsman with a neglectful father like Adolin", basically.

I compared a character from The Dragon Prince to Adolin. Then again the last season's climax was straight up Oathbringer's climax thematically and structurally, only with *Sadeas still around to rally his forces to do the dickhead thing for *Odium.

I'll put ten bucks on Adolin being beaten up and on the verge of death when he swears an Edgedancer 2nd Ideal by promising to never let Maya be forgotten, right as Shallan or Navani fixes the issue that's making spren go deadeye. He starts metabolizing stormlight and gets up to kick ass, then goes straight to third and Maya goes hog-wild with shapeshifting blade weirdness and they take on half an army together. As for characters who're doomed--my money's still on Kalak/Restares and Ishar. I think Nale will survive.

IMO Lirin is somewhere between Dalinar and Gavilar. More actively abusive than Dalinar but without Gavilar's maliciousness and megalomania. He's definitely not as bad as Moash or Sadeas. I 100% believe that Kaladin's 5th ideal will have to come after Lirin realizes what a cremling he's been and apologizes for being a self-righteous toolbag. Kaladin needs his dad to tell him that it's OK to take care of himself, too. I disagree about Shallan sucking. She's a mess, but who wouldn't be after that childhood?

Dude, I lie to my therapist and family all the time. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes because my brain selectively edits my easily-accessible memories so that I don't talk about the really difficult stuff in therapy. Getting past that is something I've been desperately trying to work on for years with mixed results. So I totally understand Shallan there.

OCD, ADHD, depression, probably some form of ASD, and Tourette's here. Shallan and Kaladin constantly stumbling and needing help getting back up is how depression and anxiety issues work. And BTW, the majority of the main characters are from Vorin kingdoms--AKA Toxic Masculinity-Land. Dalinar is an addict and a war criminal who was blatantly manipulated by his brother, who both believed in and used Alethi toxic masculinity to storm Dalinar up so he would stay Gavilar's weapon. Adolin was neglected as a child which left him with rather blatant contempt for his society and a willingness to do immensely politically inadvisable things when he knows society is being BS. Ehlokar was effectively broken by his emotionally abusive father and is locked into a cycle of desperately trying to embody Alethi toxically masculine values while knowing both that he sucks at embodying them and that they're kinda crem dung, but he can never admit that to himself because that would mean that the abusive father he didn't really like but was told to worship was wrong. I'm at least 80% sure Jasnah was sexually assaulted by Amaram and Gavilar covered it up by having her sent to a padded cell. Navani was in an abusive relationship and it took her years to decide "screw it, I'm going to do what I want and damn society". And she's otherwise a normal functional adult. Kaladin has depression and had the rust beat out of him so many times I'm genuinely surprised he didn't kill himself before the story even started, and not emotionally collapsing is a daily struggle for him. Shallan was emotionally and physically abused as a child and tries desperately to forget it--everything wrong with Ehlokar? She has it a thousand times worse. There's elements of myself I see in Shallan and Kaladin and Adolin. Adolin's reflexive "do flamboyant thing for other person" is something that I do a lot, and I get the feeling that like me, Adolin feels internally that it's an expression of guilt for being privileged. Kaladin's daily struggle is like my daily struggle to move my ass and help myself, only he has a good reason. Shallan's bad jokes remind me of my own desperate attempts to be socially accepted/liked, generally through comedy or mimicry of popular things within my general social environment. Not sure if she will grab hold of and desperately cling like a bulldog to a position contrary to the norm when she feels the norm is crem dung as much out of a desire to burn everything down so the social anxiety can be smugly right as out of a sense of conviction in her beliefs. Honestly, the whole "suck it up and move on" thing doesn't work for trauma and mental health issues in general. I remember--about 3-4 years ago I was writing a Star Trek fanfic, the protagonist, Rachel, is a prime representative of my usual main character (a badass queer woman with anxiety issues and some kind of body- or identity-related self-hatred, it's almost like I'm not entirely cis and am projecting), who is abducted by bad guys who have a cyborg war criminal (Shaw) torture and r*** her for weeks as part of an evil plot. The back third of the first of three parts is literally just her struggling to come to terms with what happened, then the second part is her struggling to help herself in therapy and on leave with her family and tele-empathic girlfriend trying to support her, then the third part is like half therapy and half Rachel fighting Shaw again and burning her face off, then verbally demolishing Shaw and leaving her to rot in a cell. The climax of part 2 is Rachel going to fight Shaw before she's really taken care of herself. I could not have Rachel win there. It just, from a narrative standpoint, from a character standpoint, was impossible. You cannot just bury trauma, bury your instinctive fear response to someone who's caused you trauma, and go fight your abuser for the sake of somebody else, for the sake of the world or the mission or whatever other important thing. I struggle to understand how someone as deeply traumatized as Shallan could even be expected to try to do that. I'm genuinely surprised that Adolin, given his complete lack of training, is even able to keep Shallan halfway functional. FFS he's more her therapist and big brother than her husband and she's still, justifiably considering the literal apocalypse, constantly backsliding. I mean, for crying out loud, it took me THREE YEARS after the last time I encountered him to transition from fearing the guy who bullied me in college, to hating him. And that's not even physical abuse, that was just an asshole with social capital (or, at least, perceived social capital) and an ego the size of Jupiter spending about four months desperately trying to ostracize me from the sci-fi club because he decided he didn't like me, and then taking the next two years to be a hostile jerk. You gotta understand that all the protagonists basically need their own clone of Adolin Kholin to be their therapist, then all of those Adolin clones will need their own therapists to deal with that responsibility. Except Dalinar, who needs Navani to grab him by the cojones and explain to him in a quiet, firm, level voice exactly how he's a terrible father. (@cosmere_play actually put this best in an author's note in their fanfic--Dalinar acts like Adolin is his dangerous and disappointing mini-me, forgets that Renarin exists most of the time, and views Kaladin as the son he never had) So, while I get that Shallan--and Kaladin for that matter--can be hard to read (god knows I literally checked out of Oathbringer for the better part of a year because Kaladin's inability to come to his 4th ideal realization hurt me down to my core), I think that they're really well-written characters, and more than that, exactly the kind of characters (stormed-up messes who, despite Sanderson's best attempts to give them beards and not write them as queer out of a fear of getting it wrong, come off as SUPER queer coded, and who're generally doing the right thing and want to do the right thing) that I like, even if their journeys necessarily include difficult bits.

The Well of Ascension was a good idea conceptually that had to be written for the sake of the trilogy, but it was hard for me to get through. Ruin should've ranted about how much the Final Empire pissed it off in the convo with Vin in HOA. In general I think a bit more of the duality of Preservation and Ruin as Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral respectively would've been good to have.

You know you're a fan when you blow hundreds of dollars on a kickstarter for four books and some themed goods sight unseen, then want to blow another few hundred on plastic Stormlight Archive figurines you know you'll almost certainly never use just a few months later. Also, catching yourself explaining characters from other media to people in relation to Stormlight characters.

You've also nailed Dalinar, particularly his parenting skills, or lack thereof. This is good writing!

You have captured the spirit of Adolin "Hey, do you need a big-brother hug? Anyone?" Kholin, disaster dandy extraordinaire. On chapter 3, liking what I'm reading so far.

Given what we've seen of him in this era, I legit wouldn't be surprised if he's succeeded.

So, I thought this was a pretty good show with some hiccups right until the end of episode 6. Everything up until that point, I liked or loved. Having Moiraine and Siuan be a thing instead of "oh that was just a teen fling and they will get beards now" is a huge improvement. I don't mind the age-up, I tolerated the whole "who is the Dragon?" mystery because frankly it is an element in the book even though it's also blatantly obvious by the time they get to Caemlyn, I understood that Corporate Daddy I-Make-My-Employees-Pee-In-Bottles had inane demands that forced certain elements of pacing and rerouted large elements of the plot, but... 1, this needed MINIMUM 2 more episodes. 2, the last two episodes were a disaster and it's only MOSTLY because the COVID shutdown and Mat's actor having a breakdown messed things up. The effects are what they are--they work well early on, but the final battle sucks because the effects compositing is garbage and they clearly just rushed everything to get it out to meet Corporate Daddy Unions-Are-Communism's demands. The acting is generally solid to good. Obviously Rosamund Pike is the standout, but Nynaeve's actress is a champ, Lan's actor never gets worse than "effective", and Siuan and Logain's actors do great with their parts. Incarnation Of All Red-Black Ajah Antagonists (I think she's Liandrin but she acts like all the jerkface Darkfriend Reds in the books all at once with extra TERF energy) has a one-note job to do and she does great at it. Before he had a breakdown, Mat's actor was amazing, I wish him the best and hope he gets some good jobs soon. Nobody else is any worse than "workmanlike". The core issue is that they really needed a couple more episodes. Moving elements around, I can understand, I don't actually mind the altered climax conceptually (it makes a good bookend with AMOL's climax), but this needed a couple more episodes. I definitely think that episodes 4-5 should've been 4-5-6, with more of the book elements in there. I think that getting the action to Tar Valon is a necessary change to quickly introduce key themes of the series, as opposed to the Caemlyn meetup that's more of just "introduce character who will be important in a few books, now get the gang back together". I don't know how exactly to fix 7 and 8, but I think most of my issues with those was because of the time crunch and Corporate Daddy Phallic-Substitute-Spaceship's demands. (can you tell I like Bezos only slightly more than I like pubic lice, Congress, Nickelback, and NAMBLA?) Certainly the blocking of the scene where Eg and Nyn go to join the circle of whatever channelers can be spared was so egregiously bad that it could only have been a result of extremely hasty production. So having the time to do all that stuff well would've removed the bulk of the issues. the climax...is conceptually decent. I think it's rushed and pat and Ishamael needed a bit more buildup across the season, and Rand's actor was really struggling there (the garbage effects and weak lines didn't help), but the concept is better than "yeah so you found a magic oasis that has all this cool loot in it" which works fine as the ending of a standalone adventure novel but is really weak when integrated into the rest of WOT as a coherent narrative arc. The brief glimpse of the Seanchan is, like, fine. I'm not super fond of the aesthetic changes, but whatever. At the end of the day, this show cannot function on 8 episodes a season. Corporate Daddy Why-Don't-The-Peons-Love-Me-I-Am-Just-Naturally-Superior-To-These-Poor-Poors is an idiot whose corporate mandates are a serious damper on all the shows on his site, but especially this one. Still leagues better than The Boys or Rings of For The Love Of Christ Drop The Harfoots Plot.

Put me in the anti-Tylin camp. Whoo boy was that ever a misfire of a plot. Also, put me in the "Tuon sucks and Mat deserves way better" camp. I still can't believe people are cool with "hey, kid, you're going to marry this proudly abusive slaver empress whose attitude towards the possibility of ending slavery or her personal abuses makes Jefferson Davis look sane, reasonable, and compromising".