Glad to hear all the positivity! I watched the Shardcast reactions and they were VEEEERY negative 😂 while I think this book had some issues, I also really enjoyed it and thought it was a satisfying conclusion! Also, spoiler alert here: 1. I cried at Seth's "I am the law" moment because that was a beautiful full-circle moment for him. Very clever and touching, classic Sando 2. I SOBBBBED when Kaladin became a Herald, specifically when Syl tells him that his eyes are dark again. That kiiiiillled me, I loved it and got super emotional lol
lol I had no idea kaladin not having huge fights was such big deal to people we've had four books of him with bad ass fights. It would be one thing if he died in this book and we didn't get any action from him but he's literally a herald now and we know we'll be seeing him later.
Thanks for a fun discussion everyone - came here from Bookborn’s feed, and thoroughly enjoyed it 😊 I liked WaT, although can see some of the issues you all discussed. Personally I found it pacy and easy to read quickly, the chapters felt shorter generally and I liked the switching between POVs. Kaladin standing up in the face of Ishar’s darkness was so satisfying, and I like the theme that the heroes in the book are all coming to realise their issues and choices are just things that ordinary people deal with every day.
Dalinar's death, and my complete lack of a reaction to it, really got me thinking about what makes fictional deaths sad. It's often the burial or funeral scenes that are the saddest. There's a death in a Robin Hobb book that might be the saddest thing I've ever read, but it's the grief of the other characters more so than death itself that really made me cry. It felt like the biggest character reaction to Dalinar's death was just Tarivangian being a bit cheesed off that he didn't get to gloat
This is a supppper good point, making me wonder if we will feel the death more in book 6 because of this (or maybe not, since there will be a time jump and we won't see most of the grieving...)
Spoiler Theres an adolin chapter later where he thinks back about the moment where dalinar while.holding honor reaches out to his family through his connections. And he talks about feeling the loss of never getting the chance to look his father in the eyes again. Or something like that. That's when it hit me a little. But yeah over all, even kal's "death" didn't hit. But nitpicking aside the book was good. It was a good amount of familiar characters and story to get lost in for sometime.
@@jakebishop7822 There are years between Wit arriving at scadrial and Shallan calling Kelsier, the biggest time dilation happens before Shallan calling Kelsier
At 1:34:00, you talked about whether Karbranths citizens physically died or were teleported to the spiritual realm. We have examples of 6 protagonists and 2 antagonists getting teleported to the spiritual realm in this book by a bondsmith with the fraction of a shards power. I would argue teleporting their physical bodies and leaving gav like meat husks in their place is DEFINITELY within a shards power.
I think Taravangian becoming Retribution rather than just Odium will be significant for Moash' arc in way that will make him very scary in the back half, and thats why we got so little of him
36:00 This I take as foreshadowing for the Mistborn vs Roshar conflict - that’s the theory Christian. All the Death Rattles hyped up the Roshar conflict, but I think what it’s showing is that ultimately it was all building to the Cosmere war.
I am a Warbreaker after stormlight reader and the hook for Warbreaker was the first chapter. Knightblood is here and it is so cool. It really works like an excellent prequel. I am also in the secret History before era 2. And I read hope of Elantris before Elantris.
To me, I didn’t notice the drop off in line-by-line quality vs RoW and WaT. The drop off to me is most noticeable between TWoK and WoR. Everything after TWoK is sort of equal in quality IMO, which is pretty solid
Interesting, I can't say I have seen that, but it is always interesting to see what different people pick up, and i'm sure their are differences, just ones I don't notice
Great book, needed another round of revision. So many small issues. 8:25 cutting the book immediately after the climax is something Frank Herbert (writer of Dune) touted. People will think about the ending more if it’s not resolved on page, which is beneficial if you’re trying to build hype for the next book, or get the reader thinking about themes. I thinking Brandon “I have a masters in writing” Sanderson, probably heard about the idea from there
Im confused about the confusion WRT the Mistborn timeline. It seems like he was interrupted while explaining. I thought the fact that Hoid goes to Scadriel and gets a job as a coachman for Wax places Wind and Truth as happening just prior to Shadows of Self. Most of Mistborn era 2 then happens after Wind and Truth. Was there something I missed?
@@joeshmoe001100 it seemed like based on what *cough* Thaidakar said about problems hitting their world, that he was referencing Lost Metal events, and that Lost Metal had already happened
Time is passing much slower inside Roshar. It took Shallan awhile to get to the Seon and start to talk to Thaidakar. He said the time dilation was really bad at first but has started to slow down, and now it's like a 1:8 ratio. It's been months for Shallan by the time she has her conversation with Thaidakar, so it could have been 5 years on Scadrial depending on what the initial ratio of time dilation was. There's also a unification that happened in the Malwish lands before TLM starts, which, with him being involved with the Malwish, and referencing Iyatl's brother, it could be that he's referring to a different crisis.
@@calebmauer1751 Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that it wasn't a constant 1:8 ratio either, and that the effect was slowly decaying, but they calculated that the total effect would be 10 years=80 years. This would make it even more likely that the 5 or so years would have passed in those months.
Just checked actually, the quote is (WaT ch 147) "We’ve been calculating. Seems like the time dilation is slowing around Roshar, and the worst was at the start, but it’s going to be a while yet. Maybe … seventy or eighty years from now..."
@@lachlankidd6517 Even with the time dilation, though, that conversation happens during a chapter. Hoid is hired by House Ladrian in the epilogue. I suppose it's possible that the epilogue could happen before the end of the last chapter, but my assumption is that it is the last event in the book.
But the chapter headings did get better at the end. The Epilogue heading had a new center piece. Which i take to be Kaladin and related to his working of helping the heralds.
The reason the spiritual realm plot was frustrating for me is that I felt it didn’t have enough conflict. Like Kyle said, it just felt like they were watching tv. There were some awesome parts like Dalinar in the rift again, but I wanted more of that, and less stuff with the heralds that I felt I already knew
I'm a very casual reader, I read maybe 5 books per year, so most of the criticism abot pacing, humor, modern words, puns and all that fly over my head. I enjoyed most of the book, so it was good and the complex analysis others make of this book make me space out. I also like excesive exposition because I miss a lot of implict things. And finally, people are way too focused on the "debate", did anyone thought tha Odium was just gonna sit down and debate the merits of his proposal with Jasnah??? That's crazy, she thought she was better than she is and that's the point of her in this book, that is her arc for the back half.
Agreed, she loses a debate, something she feels is her biggest strength. Her losing a magic fight wouldn't affect her as much. She's having a crisis of "faith" now in the same way a Mistborn character does, and she has to resolve that internal conflict. She was always such a well put together person, she thinks, so she didn't need a flashback sequence and personal growth story, her story is done. Now when we get the Jasnah book, there will be a real impact to the ending.
I basically agree that the arc that scene lead to was really good, which is why I think everyone here was ok with it, I just felt that the execution of the actual scene could have made it even more powerful. If while reading that I feel like oh no, Jasnah is completely trapped, I don't see a way out of this, that would end up being more immersive than if one of my main thoughts is "Well she can just say this."
I am increasingly frustrated by this take. What do you mean by "casual" and "modern" words? We are taking about a novel set after several different post-apocalyptic events. This isn't a historical novel. I don't get it. Relax and let the setting be what it is.
Our explanation got cut off, basically: 1) Sanderson has said that Era 2 takes place after Stormlight Era 1, even if that is only a year or two later, the time frame from Alloy of Law-Lost Metal is a few years, I'd have to check but it would be reasonably assumed that TLM takes places 8-10 years after Stormlight based on what we knew. (before we got the end of Wind and Truth) 2. At the end of this book, Wit becomes the Ladrian driver which would be during AoL/SoS. 3. Kelsier while talking to Shallan says "they've just had problems of their own", which most people have inferred is the events of Lost Metal. If it wasn't, there really isn't anything planet-wide that Kelsier could be referring to that we know about around the time of AoL, so it would be a weird thing to say. 4. Kelsier also says he has to tell Iyatil's brother about her death, and that it will likely lead to civil war in the Ghostbloods. In TLM, Iyatil's brother isn't aware of her death. So either this scene is supposed to take place after TLM, or Kelsier lied about her death for many years, which isn't impossible, but seems unlikely. All this information together is incongruent. Something has to be retconned, the most likely being the gap between Stormlight and Era 2. But even then, it seems like there are 4-8 years (I forget how much time elapses during Era 2) between the Wit scene on Scadriel and the Shallan/Kelsier conversation. It doesn't seem like the time dilution was YEARS of difference, they said months delay. So something doesn't fully add up. I think it will most just be yada yada'd in the future, but I don't agree it totally lines up currently.
@readbykyle3082 Can't we assume (as we are told) that a lot of time is passing with each of Kelsiers replies. For shallan is moments, for kelsier it's months, years... so in the span of their conversation, the entirety of Mistborn era 2 could have happened. Wits moment of being hired as the driver doesn't Impact this because technically that's happening while Kelsier is talking to shallan over a period of years. Also, The set (autonomy) was happening even in Allow of law! That's something that was built over the 4 books. So kelseir referring to them handling things of their own, makes sense to me.
@brandonbivins3336 yeah I have reread that scene with those thoughts in mind and I do think that's what the "yada yada"ing will be. But I don't think the scene makes it clear how much time could be passing in those moments nor does Kelsier make it seem like years have passed. I don't agree about the autonomy thing - he said "we just dealt with something" not we are going to be dealing with something. And autonomy is not really doing stuff until maybe BoM if we're generous, so I think you're doing more of the work to make this make sense than the book itself is. But like I said, I don't think it's a big deal regardless
If I read a book and I love it, no amount of hate can change that. I thought WaT was okay but no one should feel weird or ashamed for thinking it was great Edit: 53:53 - I can confirm Kyle did NOT say he wants to do Szeth and Kaladin next, that was all Bookborn 😂
I've read every Cosmere book at least once, most of them at least twice, and this was the first one I put down before I was done. Not sure how ANYONE thinks "W&T" is the best Cosmere novel. Sooooo many broken parts and unnecessary...words, lol. You guys are shucking and jiving as fast as you can to defend this book.
This is by far the best discussion I’ve heard of the book. I’m kind of disgusted where most of the discussion has gone in the online community. The only person I’ve talked to offline that has complaints about the book regurgitated a RUclips video review. Books with 450k words aren’t going to come across as perfect for everyone. Journey before destination people! Stop looking for things to complain about and enjoy the journey!
I did enjoy the book, but its the overexplaining of scenes and different feelings in the moment that just takes me out of the experience. My favorite experience of the book had to do with Kaladin, specifically when Kal and Syl kattah/danced with each other.
@@jakebishop7822 Bro, after reading the dance chapter you can't deny that there is a romantic intention (references to lalaland). After my rereads of Stormlight, I have seen the light, Kaladin failed in his previous relationships because he was destined for Syl. She is his other half. By the way, excellent podcast. I am from Latin America, and after I finished Wind and Truth, I have been watching video reviews of the book. I saw a lot of negativity, but finding Lost in Discovery and this was refreshing. I like your arguments and you are very funny.
@@lacramaldita2230 bitter because I don’t support nasty vomit inducing ships between a spiritual spren and a physical human being? Who for the past four books have been friends and almost more like brother / sister relationship
Luv ya guts Jake :-) (ask christian if you need clarification on that aussie-ism) Even though we are diametrically opposed on most stuff here I like my views being challenged and Bookborn is also one of my absolute faves and this podcast was a cracker. However... I am still yet to see anyone discuss how ridiculous it is that this new oathpact has no reason, ever, to be broken? Like if Ishar could put their minds somewhere else whilst their bodies get ripped to shreds via torture why on earth wouldn't you do that the 1st time around..? And even if you're like he learned, he's thousands of years older my question would be at what point between torture and insanity would you figure that out lol. So there can now be no more desolations, and Kaladin will be forever therapising the heralds in the spiritual world mind-prison for the Heralds. Awesome.
@aldan7812 the oathpact isn't going to be broken. But like.....the fused are still around, because they won. They they will return not because they broke, but because they need to go back to try and take back Roshar. But yes, presumably if they manage to win they can do an oathpact that they will have no reason to break. I imagine we will learn more in the next 5 books about Heralds Presumably he didn't do it the first time because he didn't know he could.
@@jakebishop7822 ok so what function does the new oathpact serve then? it... serves to stop fused that die returning but odium holds sway so no fused can reasonably be expected to die..? I am confused. Are you saying the Heralds now can return at any time - that actually could be cool i wont lie. Cmon... If he knows now, with broken brain times a billion, then he must have known before. To think that he figured this out now after broken thousand year brain is silly bro.
@aldan7812 i know he was crazy, but he was also pretty clearly trying to figure stuff out. And remember he was sane enough to be the voice in Szeths head. Also like.....even if he wasn't at his best, he had literally thousands of years to figure stuff out. The evidence he didn't know he could do it before is that....well like they didn't do it.
@@jakebishop7822 lol. ok i NKOW the evidence is there because he didn't do it I just don't believe that he wouldn't have done it before breaking his brain for thousands of years. I would say the voice inside Szeths head as Ishar is in no way a reflection of sanity btw haha. Look, i have much love for you sir. Enough to even forestall burning my cosmere collection and re-reading this book which i swore i would never do. DAMMIT OATH BROKEN.
@aldan7812 i think I bring up the point because he doesn't need sanity to do research, he needs competence. Which he has, and so will figure out stuff over thousands of years
YES! The point that jasnah is smarter than me! ROFL yes my thoughts exactly. I was thinking, yea if I came up with the a better argument and also I easily understood the debate it wasn’t good enough. It took no real thought. I didn’t have to look at it deeper or reread it.
@@PixelatedEpiphany It wasn't a rational debate, it was about appealing to Queen Fen's emotions, especially her fear. Jasnah wasn't prepared for that, while Taravangian was, and that type of emotional work is her weakness. It's a good scene that sets up Jasnah's arc in the second half. She's made similar mistakes before, like failing to predict the effect her demonstration to Shallan would have in book 1, or taking out that high prince in book 4, it was good to do, but the way she did it may cost her in the future. In book 5, her way of doing things comes back to haunt her in the debate with Taravangian, and even her break up with Wit leaves her feeling like she really needs emotional comfort after she'd convinced herself she didn't to get over feeling like an outcast earlier in life.
I think what ended up happening was Jasnah's intelligence was capped because she had to lose the argument to Taravangian despite being right, so he had to come up with an argument that Taravangian could do, that was wrong, but also hard enough to refute that it is believable that Jasnah would fail to do it. Which was probably hard to figure out, but it's the writers job to figure out how to make the difficult things work
The constant POV switching ruined the pace because you couldn’t get into a POV before it was interrupted by an unrelated POV within the same chapter. Just pick a lane. The constant POV switching is fine during a Sanderlanche, but WAT did this throughout the whole book.
I can see that, definitely didn't bother me, and honestly didn't really occur to me, but you are right that on average the PoV chunks especially past day 2 were much shorter than normal. I wonder if this is part of what is causing the opposite reactions in pacing, because looking back I wonder if for me it made the book feel more frantic, and more desperate
I didn't have that issue at all. I was engaged by pretty much every storyline and there was so much happening that the switching POVs kept the energy and intensity up throughout. I understand if it wasn't for you, but I don't agree that it ruined the pace as a rule.
I'm you guys liked the book. Huge disappointment for me personally. I felt like I finished this book out of obligation, the first 90 percent of the book was a slog. I think I'm done with Sanderson after this. His way of writing has just progressively irritated me more and more. I did love this talk though!
The only time I've had a "problem" with the mental health aspects Sanderson's work occur in "W&T". In this book, all of the main characters mental health struggles went from something they dealt with as they lived their lives, to their sole defining characteristics. Why does EVERYONE have some kind of a mental issue, when only about 20% population actually has mental health issues?
Not sure if I missed it but has anyone mentioned anything about how (spoilers obviously) I'm pretty sure Sanderson was setting up Adolin to end up getting married to May Aladar? I don't think I like it and I hope I'm wrong but my current theory is Shallan is going to end up not being able to see Adolin. Maybe they'll have a goodbye or something and then boom he's alone and he ends up with May.
@@jesusmguerrero It wasn't mentioned, but I personally did not get that vibe at all, and would be very surprised if it happened. I could be wrong, just didn't even consider it.
Looking forward to hearing all the takes although I can already tell it’s too positive / sweep the faults under the rug leaning for me. But still I support and respect Bookborn and Christian. As for pacing - it was truly a slog. And I loved all the characters represented except for Adolin. The only reason I read it so fast is because I just wanted to know how it all ended. But honestly until like Day 5/Day 6 I can’t really say anything spectacular happened…. This is by far his worst book ever for a multitude of reasons. It’s just beyond cringe at this point.
Looking forward to reading this comment although I can tell it's too reactionary/exaggerating Wait, you loved everyone except for Adolin? Wait, worse than Calamity, Worse than Frugal Wizard? Worse than White Sand?
@ are there characters in Stormlight Archive? Never heard of em…. And yes I like Venli a million times more than golden haired boring Adolin. I like Shallan. Even constantly depressed Kaladin is more interesting to me than Adolin whose biggest issue is that his dad killed his mom (valid but then how does he conquer daddy issues in 10 days?) and he’s surrounded by radiants (booo hooo). Meanwhile Sanderson (your lord and savior) totally lost the plot when it came to him murdering Sadeas. Not even one single consequence or negative thing happened to him due to that.
Don't we all read Sanderson for the cool action sequences? Don't you guys remember the Vin slaughters from Mistborn? Words of Radiance end sequence? Oathbringer with its battle of Thaylen Field? Where was that here? What fight sequence had you breathless? Not the Abidi one, come on, don't lie to me 😒
The entire plot is great except for shinovar arc. I'm like ftw? So the people of Shinovar were not wrong. It was just a crazy Herald. And Szeth was Truthless truly because that was not an Unmade, and the Desolation had not begun.
@Kaladinstormblessedbridge49888 i quite like the cool action sequences, but my favorite Sanderson book is The Emperor’s Soul so it's fair to say that's not the main reason I read Sanderson. That being said, I.....I kinda feel like the book had really cool action scenes. 2 of the main plotlines were centered around a battle. Ch84? Taln ? And for the first time in over four thousand years, the Bearer of Agonies fought back. Literal chills, and fist pumps at the same time. Adolin against the Thunderclast was also cinema. Also the trap against the other Shardbearers where Adolin charged forward. Some of the Szeth duels were also pretty sick. Especially the one in the cognitive realm. Like.....obviously it has a lot of non action plots, but frankly, if you mainly want to read action, that's cool, I can recommend you some books with a lot more action in them than Stormlight. Even the most well received Sanderson novel (Words of Radiance ) is mostly not action.
There is an abscense of the big epic showdown with all characters involved in this one, so, I get where you're coming from since I was expecting that too. I don't think it's a weakness of the writing in this case, Brandon couldn't do a big showdown, because the main conflict was the contest, which had to be a small group thing. The other issue is he needs to maintain tension for the second half. If he wrapped a bunch of stuff up by killing El and Moash for example, readers would be left feeling like there's no point in the second half of the series. It's got to be more like the way the second book in a trilogy tends to end in fantasy, with main characters split up and a feeling that the villain has won. I think we can trust Brandon to bring it all back together in the next half.
@@jakebishop7822 emperor's soul did have a cool action sequence at the end bishop. Action sequence with taln?. And the way you say it makes me sound like I don't know what to expect from a Sanderson or a Stormlight book, when I do. The tension wasn't there, I didn't feel the stakes and the fight choreography was left vague in so many places, nowhere near the earlier books. That said I'm glad you had a better time with it than I did. So happy that so many people find the joy that I couldn't. Maybe I'm just being a Jealous Jake because of it
I find the ending to be a total character assassination of dalinar. So the idea is that he will renounce his oaths freeing odium and forcing the other shards to deal with him, but in doing so he gives odium a new shard. Problem with this, it has already been established dalinar can let odium leave, he could have done this without renouncing. Renouncing is essentially murdering the stormfather while making his enemy stronger, and crippling his allies, like why would he do this? Bo ado mishram was silly, she's all like kill the humans, gets out and them doesn't kill the humans, so that does not make sense. Moash and El are built up to be major villians and they do nothing... blackthorn being brought back is silly. Much of the dialog is bad. I feel this is by leaps and bounds the worst stormlight book. 6/10 at best. Also dalinars most important words were kinda weak sauce. I think you guys are too hard on the debate scene, getting jasnah to admit she considered assassinating fen is a really good reason to betray the coalition, maybe it could have been better, but taravangian did make a powerful argument. Also taravangian sparing kharbranth shows he has weakness and it shows his ideology lost to dalinars. Taravangian is not meant to be pure evil, he is a conflicted character and it is the kind of thing he would do. There was no reason for tanavast to help odium, like odium losing his power would make honor win, so why would he help odium and compromise his own powers, i dont think that plotline works.
Freeing Odium without the power boost ironically makes him more of a threat as explained in the Sunmakers gambit scenes in Adolin's chapter. When you have a war with multiple individual participants becoming clearly a bigger threat than anyone else makes winning nearly impossible, have you ever played Settlers of Catan? If Odium leaves as 1 shard than he will end up on another planet, messing with 1 other Shard, and all the Shards not on that planet will just consider it other peoples problem. Which is why just letting him go would not work. B'ado Mishram still might try to kill all the humans in fairness. I also loved Taravangian sparing Kharbranth
@jakebishop7822 yes but odium killed 4 shards he was already threat that could not be ignored if off Roshar. No need to make him more powerful. Furthermore there was no reason for dalinar to lose. Despite taravangians posturing the contest was not to the death, if dainar lost he was to become fused, implication: dalinar can lose without dying. So all he needs to do is make gav surrender or unable to fight. Dalinar became honor, just drop gav in shandesmar and it's over. Like the whole ending was incoherent. And dalinar showed up thinking the contest would not be a fight, well why did they not agree on what it was beforehand? Why did odium get to set the parameters? If dalinar can be his own champion, why was odium not his own champion? That's what I was expecting since he could not lose a fight against a mortal and there is no reason he couldn't. If he was not allowed then dalinar would have lost the second he became honor by the same logic that would disqualify honor.
Sanderson has always been a pedestrian writer but must have been covered up by his editor Moshe. Now Moshe is gone Sanderson is free to publish his middle grade level prose. Sanderson is like Nickelback - it kind of sounds like music and it’s popular but it’s not music. Nirvana is music, and Rothfuss is Nirvana.
It's just meant to be a jokie slang term! I'm a normie, we are all normies about things! It's just an easy and silly way of simply distinguishing that fans who are deep in the fandom/online, are not going to always have an accurate perception of how the media is viewed by the more general public. So many times in fandoms I'm DEEP in, i'll be shocked when I find that the way I've perceived something is VASTLY different to those who just casually enjoy the media.
This might be the only reasonable review video for this book on the internet
As a therapist…Kaladin’s moments of trying to be a therapist were hilariously accurate of what its like to be a newbie therapist.
@wyatt6403 this made me picture Kaladin doing jobs I have done poorly, and made me chuckle
Good to know Brandon got that right
@@jakebishop7822 Stormlight 7: Kaladin's bad laundry, coming to you soon
Glad to hear all the positivity! I watched the Shardcast reactions and they were VEEEERY negative 😂 while I think this book had some issues, I also really enjoyed it and thought it was a satisfying conclusion!
Also, spoiler alert here:
1. I cried at Seth's "I am the law" moment because that was a beautiful full-circle moment for him. Very clever and touching, classic Sando
2. I SOBBBBED when Kaladin became a Herald, specifically when Syl tells him that his eyes are dark again. That kiiiiillled me, I loved it and got super emotional lol
lol I had no idea kaladin not having huge fights was such big deal to people we've had four books of him with bad ass fights. It would be one thing if he died in this book and we didn't get any action from him but he's literally a herald now and we know we'll be seeing him later.
Great stream! Listened to it on my run and had a great time
Thanks for a fun discussion everyone - came here from Bookborn’s feed, and thoroughly enjoyed it 😊 I liked WaT, although can see some of the issues you all discussed. Personally I found it pacy and easy to read quickly, the chapters felt shorter generally and I liked the switching between POVs. Kaladin standing up in the face of Ishar’s darkness was so satisfying, and I like the theme that the heroes in the book are all coming to realise their issues and choices are just things that ordinary people deal with every day.
Glad you enjoyed it. I am so proud of my boy Kaladin.
Dalinar's death, and my complete lack of a reaction to it, really got me thinking about what makes fictional deaths sad. It's often the burial or funeral scenes that are the saddest. There's a death in a Robin Hobb book that might be the saddest thing I've ever read, but it's the grief of the other characters more so than death itself that really made me cry.
It felt like the biggest character reaction to Dalinar's death was just Tarivangian being a bit cheesed off that he didn't get to gloat
This is a supppper good point, making me wonder if we will feel the death more in book 6 because of this (or maybe not, since there will be a time jump and we won't see most of the grieving...)
I particularly love that I don't even have a good guess for what Hobb character it could be, there are so many potentially realistic options
Yeah it was underwhelming
Spoiler
Theres an adolin chapter later where he thinks back about the moment where dalinar while.holding honor reaches out to his family through his connections. And he talks about feeling the loss of never getting the chance to look his father in the eyes again. Or something like that. That's when it hit me a little. But yeah over all, even kal's "death" didn't hit. But nitpicking aside the book was good. It was a good amount of familiar characters and story to get lost in for sometime.
Very good show . Nice to see positive commentary .
Came here for the cremling discussion and did not disappoint!!
This is why I brought Christian
I watched this for the cremlings as well.
the hoid going to scadrial is clearly around shadows of self because we get that scene about getting a job with Wax
@@shyampadia this makes sense, and I was probably just wrong
It was probably just pre alloy of law (post wax return to the city) as hoid is at the wedding
@@jakebishop7822 There are years between Wit arriving at scadrial and Shallan calling Kelsier, the biggest time dilation happens before Shallan calling Kelsier
I think Nohadon is the hidden Shard Reason.
I think the fleet story is foreshadowing Kaladin becoming a Herald.
Unless I misunderstood, he *did* become a herald.
About the death rattles, Taravangian heard his mother saying one from his POV(in the WaT prologue) so it can happen.
Ah, I had forgotten about that, good call.
At 1:34:00, you talked about whether Karbranths citizens physically died or were teleported to the spiritual realm. We have examples of 6 protagonists and 2 antagonists getting teleported to the spiritual realm in this book by a bondsmith with the fraction of a shards power. I would argue teleporting their physical bodies and leaving gav like meat husks in their place is DEFINITELY within a shards power.
@@BenShankel ya, I had kinda missed what happened, and you are almost surely right
They definitely used boiling oil, but rarely. Boiling water and hot sand were used more frequently.
I think Taravangian becoming Retribution rather than just Odium will be significant for Moash' arc in way that will make him very scary in the back half, and thats why we got so little of him
Nohadon is Adonalsium's cognitive shadow
36:00 This I take as foreshadowing for the Mistborn vs Roshar conflict - that’s the theory Christian. All the Death Rattles hyped up the Roshar conflict, but I think what it’s showing is that ultimately it was all building to the Cosmere war.
Definitely possible, I think Christian would probably agree with this
I am a Warbreaker after stormlight reader and the hook for Warbreaker was the first chapter. Knightblood is here and it is so cool. It really works like an excellent prequel. I am also in the secret History before era 2. And I read hope of Elantris before Elantris.
To me, I didn’t notice the drop off in line-by-line quality vs RoW and WaT. The drop off to me is most noticeable between TWoK and WoR. Everything after TWoK is sort of equal in quality IMO, which is pretty solid
Interesting, I can't say I have seen that, but it is always interesting to see what different people pick up, and i'm sure their are differences, just ones I don't notice
Loved this book!
Let's goooooo
I'm here for Christian! I need more Christian!
I absolutely loved the book. It may very well be my favorite Stormlight Book.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great book, needed another round of revision. So many small issues.
8:25 cutting the book immediately after the climax is something Frank Herbert (writer of Dune) touted. People will think about the ending more if it’s not resolved on page, which is beneficial if you’re trying to build hype for the next book, or get the reader thinking about themes. I thinking Brandon “I have a masters in writing” Sanderson, probably heard about the idea from there
Im confused about the confusion WRT the Mistborn timeline. It seems like he was interrupted while explaining. I thought the fact that Hoid goes to Scadriel and gets a job as a coachman for Wax places Wind and Truth as happening just prior to Shadows of Self. Most of Mistborn era 2 then happens after Wind and Truth. Was there something I missed?
@@joeshmoe001100 it seemed like based on what *cough* Thaidakar said about problems hitting their world, that he was referencing Lost Metal events, and that Lost Metal had already happened
Time is passing much slower inside Roshar. It took Shallan awhile to get to the Seon and start to talk to Thaidakar. He said the time dilation was really bad at first but has started to slow down, and now it's like a 1:8 ratio. It's been months for Shallan by the time she has her conversation with Thaidakar, so it could have been 5 years on Scadrial depending on what the initial ratio of time dilation was. There's also a unification that happened in the Malwish lands before TLM starts, which, with him being involved with the Malwish, and referencing Iyatl's brother, it could be that he's referring to a different crisis.
@@calebmauer1751 Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that it wasn't a constant 1:8 ratio either, and that the effect was slowly decaying, but they calculated that the total effect would be 10 years=80 years. This would make it even more likely that the 5 or so years would have passed in those months.
Just checked actually, the quote is (WaT ch 147) "We’ve been calculating. Seems like the time dilation is slowing around Roshar, and the worst was at the start, but it’s going to be a while yet. Maybe … seventy or eighty years from now..."
@@lachlankidd6517 Even with the time dilation, though, that conversation happens during a chapter. Hoid is hired by House Ladrian in the epilogue. I suppose it's possible that the epilogue could happen before the end of the last chapter, but my assumption is that it is the last event in the book.
But the chapter headings did get better at the end. The Epilogue heading had a new center piece. Which i take to be Kaladin and related to his working of helping the heralds.
So glad to hear some positivity on the book, it seems all i've seen so far is doom and gloom other than bookborn's previous videos
I'm glad to be of help
The reason the spiritual realm plot was frustrating for me is that I felt it didn’t have enough conflict. Like Kyle said, it just felt like they were watching tv. There were some awesome parts like Dalinar in the rift again, but I wanted more of that, and less stuff with the heralds that I felt I already knew
I'm a very casual reader, I read maybe 5 books per year, so most of the criticism abot pacing, humor, modern words, puns and all that fly over my head. I enjoyed most of the book, so it was good and the complex analysis others make of this book make me space out. I also like excesive exposition because I miss a lot of implict things. And finally, people are way too focused on the "debate", did anyone thought tha Odium was just gonna sit down and debate the merits of his proposal with Jasnah??? That's crazy, she thought she was better than she is and that's the point of her in this book, that is her arc for the back half.
Agreed, she loses a debate, something she feels is her biggest strength. Her losing a magic fight wouldn't affect her as much. She's having a crisis of "faith" now in the same way a Mistborn character does, and she has to resolve that internal conflict. She was always such a well put together person, she thinks, so she didn't need a flashback sequence and personal growth story, her story is done. Now when we get the Jasnah book, there will be a real impact to the ending.
I basically agree that the arc that scene lead to was really good, which is why I think everyone here was ok with it, I just felt that the execution of the actual scene could have made it even more powerful.
If while reading that I feel like oh no, Jasnah is completely trapped, I don't see a way out of this, that would end up being more immersive than if one of my main thoughts is "Well she can just say this."
We didn't need a ticking click to build tension in this novel.
I think the BAM plotline would have hit better if it was what allowed the dead-eye spren to make the Unoathed, but it happened a little later.
Wind and truth was an odd mix for me. Periodically frustrated or distracted with the casual or modern words plus completely consumed by the story
I am increasingly frustrated by this take. What do you mean by "casual" and "modern" words? We are taking about a novel set after several different post-apocalyptic events. This isn't a historical novel. I don't get it. Relax and let the setting be what it is.
@HSExsiccator no. It's a matter of preference. Do you argue with people who have different a favorite ice cream than you?
I can see this, although I generally do not mind the modern vocabulary because it is consistent. Personal preference though
Use of therapy when it isn’t a rosharan word bothered me. Especially at the very end.
I'm confused why you all think Wit ending in Mistborn Era 2 has to be retconned ?? It makes perfect sense!
Our explanation got cut off, basically:
1) Sanderson has said that Era 2 takes place after Stormlight Era 1, even if that is only a year or two later, the time frame from Alloy of Law-Lost Metal is a few years, I'd have to check but it would be reasonably assumed that TLM takes places 8-10 years after Stormlight based on what we knew. (before we got the end of Wind and Truth)
2. At the end of this book, Wit becomes the Ladrian driver which would be during AoL/SoS.
3. Kelsier while talking to Shallan says "they've just had problems of their own", which most people have inferred is the events of Lost Metal. If it wasn't, there really isn't anything planet-wide that Kelsier could be referring to that we know about around the time of AoL, so it would be a weird thing to say.
4. Kelsier also says he has to tell Iyatil's brother about her death, and that it will likely lead to civil war in the Ghostbloods. In TLM, Iyatil's brother isn't aware of her death. So either this scene is supposed to take place after TLM, or Kelsier lied about her death for many years, which isn't impossible, but seems unlikely.
All this information together is incongruent. Something has to be retconned, the most likely being the gap between Stormlight and Era 2. But even then, it seems like there are 4-8 years (I forget how much time elapses during Era 2) between the Wit scene on Scadriel and the Shallan/Kelsier conversation. It doesn't seem like the time dilution was YEARS of difference, they said months delay. So something doesn't fully add up.
I think it will most just be yada yada'd in the future, but I don't agree it totally lines up currently.
@readbykyle3082 Can't we assume (as we are told) that a lot of time is passing with each of Kelsiers replies. For shallan is moments, for kelsier it's months, years... so in the span of their conversation, the entirety of Mistborn era 2 could have happened.
Wits moment of being hired as the driver doesn't Impact this because technically that's happening while Kelsier is talking to shallan over a period of years.
Also, The set (autonomy) was happening even in Allow of law! That's something that was built over the 4 books. So kelseir referring to them handling things of their own, makes sense to me.
@brandonbivins3336 yeah I have reread that scene with those thoughts in mind and I do think that's what the "yada yada"ing will be. But I don't think the scene makes it clear how much time could be passing in those moments nor does Kelsier make it seem like years have passed.
I don't agree about the autonomy thing - he said "we just dealt with something" not we are going to be dealing with something. And autonomy is not really doing stuff until maybe BoM if we're generous, so I think you're doing more of the work to make this make sense than the book itself is.
But like I said, I don't think it's a big deal regardless
I think cultivation gave that death rattle to Sigzil so he could take Wits DS
interesting
If I read a book and I love it, no amount of hate can change that. I thought WaT was okay but no one should feel weird or ashamed for thinking it was great
Edit:
53:53 - I can confirm Kyle did NOT say he wants to do Szeth and Kaladin next, that was all Bookborn 😂
Vindication for Kyle
I've read every Cosmere book at least once, most of them at least twice, and this was the first one I put down before I was done. Not sure how ANYONE thinks "W&T" is the best Cosmere novel. Sooooo many broken parts and unnecessary...words, lol. You guys are shucking and jiving as fast as you can to defend this book.
Fraught with bias and devoid of reason!
Is not how I would describe this stream 🙏
Nice plot twist
....how does one skip *SIX* WoT novels?!?
With gusto and aplomb
This is by far the best discussion I’ve heard of the book. I’m kind of disgusted where most of the discussion has gone in the online community. The only person I’ve talked to offline that has complaints about the book regurgitated a RUclips video review. Books with 450k words aren’t going to come across as perfect for everyone. Journey before destination people! Stop looking for things to complain about and enjoy the journey!
What if I want to complain about is the journey! Destination before journey feels like the slogan for WaT.
Sounds like you’re the problem and why Sandersons writing (which was already mid to begin with) has gone down into the gutter with Wind and Truth
Glad you enjoyed it
Lost in Roshar!
I suspect Wit’s ‘Exist’ Dawnshard makes it weird to copy him in the Spiritual Realm
I did enjoy the book, but its the overexplaining of scenes and different feelings in the moment that just takes me out of the experience. My favorite experience of the book had to do with Kaladin, specifically when Kal and Syl kattah/danced with each other.
Syladin best ship. King and Queen
@@lacramaldita2230 boooooo
@@jakebishop7822 Bro, after reading the dance chapter you can't deny that there is a romantic intention (references to lalaland). After my rereads of Stormlight, I have seen the light, Kaladin failed in his previous relationships because he was destined for Syl. She is his other half. By the way, excellent podcast. I am from Latin America, and after I finished Wind and Truth, I have been watching video reviews of the book. I saw a lot of negativity, but finding Lost in Discovery and this was refreshing. I like your arguments and you are very funny.
Nasty
@@jasonbrewbaker3932 You again? Why are you so bitter?
@@lacramaldita2230 bitter because I don’t support nasty vomit inducing ships between a spiritual spren and a physical human being? Who for the past four books have been friends and almost more like brother / sister relationship
Luv ya guts Jake :-) (ask christian if you need clarification on that aussie-ism) Even though we are diametrically opposed on most stuff here I like my views being challenged and Bookborn is also one of my absolute faves and this podcast was a cracker. However... I am still yet to see anyone discuss how ridiculous it is that this new oathpact has no reason, ever, to be broken? Like if Ishar could put their minds somewhere else whilst their bodies get ripped to shreds via torture why on earth wouldn't you do that the 1st time around..? And even if you're like he learned, he's thousands of years older my question would be at what point between torture and insanity would you figure that out lol. So there can now be no more desolations, and Kaladin will be forever therapising the heralds in the spiritual world mind-prison for the Heralds. Awesome.
@aldan7812 the oathpact isn't going to be broken. But like.....the fused are still around, because they won. They they will return not because they broke, but because they need to go back to try and take back Roshar.
But yes, presumably if they manage to win they can do an oathpact that they will have no reason to break. I imagine we will learn more in the next 5 books about Heralds
Presumably he didn't do it the first time because he didn't know he could.
@@jakebishop7822 ok so what function does the new oathpact serve then? it... serves to stop fused that die returning but odium holds sway so no fused can reasonably be expected to die..? I am confused. Are you saying the Heralds now can return at any time - that actually could be cool i wont lie.
Cmon... If he knows now, with broken brain times a billion, then he must have known before. To think that he figured this out now after broken thousand year brain is silly bro.
@aldan7812 i know he was crazy, but he was also pretty clearly trying to figure stuff out. And remember he was sane enough to be the voice in Szeths head.
Also like.....even if he wasn't at his best, he had literally thousands of years to figure stuff out.
The evidence he didn't know he could do it before is that....well like they didn't do it.
@@jakebishop7822 lol. ok i NKOW the evidence is there because he didn't do it I just don't believe that he wouldn't have done it before breaking his brain for thousands of years.
I would say the voice inside Szeths head as Ishar is in no way a reflection of sanity btw haha.
Look, i have much love for you sir. Enough to even forestall burning my cosmere collection and re-reading this book which i swore i would never do. DAMMIT OATH BROKEN.
@aldan7812 i think I bring up the point because he doesn't need sanity to do research, he needs competence. Which he has, and so will figure out stuff over thousands of years
No disrespect, everyone has their own opinion, but W&T was a 10/10 for me!
I don't know how unabashedly loving a book could ever be disrespectful. LFG
Love it Jasnah frustrated me but I enjoyed some of the guilt from some of the stuff I didn’t like that she did in WoK.
kharbranth is inspired by Zanarkand
Excellent book, though it felt very long and dreary with everyone just catching huge L's the entire book.
Loved Szeth's story though.
I was waiting for Szeth to be a main character for so long. I hope he doesn't fade into the background for ARC 2
The only thing I outright disliked about this book is Jasnah. She’s probably my favorite character and I was incredibly disappointed by it all in WaT
YES! The point that jasnah is smarter than me! ROFL yes my thoughts exactly. I was thinking, yea if I came up with the a better argument and also I easily understood the debate it wasn’t good enough. It took no real thought. I didn’t have to look at it deeper or reread it.
I think we are supposed to be disappointed in jasnah. Sanderson could have done it better though.
@@PixelatedEpiphany It wasn't a rational debate, it was about appealing to Queen Fen's emotions, especially her fear. Jasnah wasn't prepared for that, while Taravangian was, and that type of emotional work is her weakness. It's a good scene that sets up Jasnah's arc in the second half. She's made similar mistakes before, like failing to predict the effect her demonstration to Shallan would have in book 1, or taking out that high prince in book 4, it was good to do, but the way she did it may cost her in the future. In book 5, her way of doing things comes back to haunt her in the debate with Taravangian, and even her break up with Wit leaves her feeling like she really needs emotional comfort after she'd convinced herself she didn't to get over feeling like an outcast earlier in life.
I think what ended up happening was Jasnah's intelligence was capped because she had to lose the argument to Taravangian despite being right, so he had to come up with an argument that Taravangian could do, that was wrong, but also hard enough to refute that it is believable that Jasnah would fail to do it. Which was probably hard to figure out, but it's the writers job to figure out how to make the difficult things work
Hasn't Sanderson said repeatedly that the pronunciations in the audiobooks are the correct ones?
The constant POV switching ruined the pace because you couldn’t get into a POV before it was interrupted by an unrelated POV within the same chapter. Just pick a lane. The constant POV switching is fine during a Sanderlanche, but WAT did this throughout the whole book.
This is exactly how I felt I kept getting pulled out
I can see that, definitely didn't bother me, and honestly didn't really occur to me, but you are right that on average the PoV chunks especially past day 2 were much shorter than normal.
I wonder if this is part of what is causing the opposite reactions in pacing, because looking back I wonder if for me it made the book feel more frantic, and more desperate
I didn't have that issue at all. I was engaged by pretty much every storyline and there was so much happening that the switching POVs kept the energy and intensity up throughout. I understand if it wasn't for you, but I don't agree that it ruined the pace as a rule.
I'm you guys liked the book. Huge disappointment for me personally. I felt like I finished this book out of obligation, the first 90 percent of the book was a slog. I think I'm done with Sanderson after this. His way of writing has just progressively irritated me more and more.
I did love this talk though!
Sorry to hear that, glad you enjoyed the discussion at least.
The only time I've had a "problem" with the mental health aspects Sanderson's work occur in "W&T". In this book, all of the main characters mental health struggles went from something they dealt with as they lived their lives, to their sole defining characteristics. Why does EVERYONE have some kind of a mental issue, when only about 20% population actually has mental health issues?
Chapter 10 was the best chapter. Y'all need to calm down and let different characters have different kinds of humor.
I will never ever calm down about chapter ten 😂 you need to calm down and let me be uncalm
Ok, I get if you found the main joke funny, but the best chapter? Really, better than chapter 84?
@@jakebishop7822 chapter 84 🙏
300 pages could have been cut without anyone noticing.
Bad, bad, bad!
Not sure if I missed it but has anyone mentioned anything about how (spoilers obviously)
I'm pretty sure Sanderson was setting up Adolin to end up getting married to May Aladar? I don't think I like it and I hope I'm wrong but my current theory is Shallan is going to end up not being able to see Adolin. Maybe they'll have a goodbye or something and then boom he's alone and he ends up with May.
@@jesusmguerrero It wasn't mentioned, but I personally did not get that vibe at all, and would be very surprised if it happened.
I could be wrong, just didn't even consider it.
Nah, that's not how I saw it. It's just showing that people can make amends for a bad relationship and end up on good terms with their ex.
I hope not :(. For me, May and Adolin's relationship was just to show how much he has grown since WoK.
Looking forward to hearing all the takes although I can already tell it’s too positive / sweep the faults under the rug leaning for me. But still I support and respect Bookborn and Christian.
As for pacing - it was truly a slog. And I loved all the characters represented except for Adolin. The only reason I read it so fast is because I just wanted to know how it all ended. But honestly until like Day 5/Day 6 I can’t really say anything spectacular happened….
This is by far his worst book ever for a multitude of reasons. It’s just beyond cringe at this point.
Looking forward to reading this comment although I can tell it's too reactionary/exaggerating
Wait, you loved everyone except for Adolin?
Wait, worse than Calamity, Worse than Frugal Wizard? Worse than White Sand?
@ are there characters in Stormlight Archive? Never heard of em….
And yes I like Venli a million times more than golden haired boring Adolin. I like Shallan. Even constantly depressed Kaladin is more interesting to me than Adolin whose biggest issue is that his dad killed his mom (valid but then how does he conquer daddy issues in 10 days?) and he’s surrounded by radiants (booo hooo).
Meanwhile Sanderson (your lord and savior) totally lost the plot when it came to him murdering Sadeas. Not even one single consequence or negative thing happened to him due to that.
Don't we all read Sanderson for the cool action sequences? Don't you guys remember the Vin slaughters from Mistborn? Words of Radiance end sequence? Oathbringer with its battle of Thaylen Field? Where was that here? What fight sequence had you breathless? Not the Abidi one, come on, don't lie to me 😒
And the Dalinar death felt so anti-climactic 😢 no feelings
The entire plot is great except for shinovar arc. I'm like ftw? So the people of Shinovar were not wrong. It was just a crazy Herald. And Szeth was Truthless truly because that was not an Unmade, and the Desolation had not begun.
@Kaladinstormblessedbridge49888 i quite like the cool action sequences, but my favorite Sanderson book is The Emperor’s Soul so it's fair to say that's not the main reason I read Sanderson. That being said, I.....I kinda feel like the book had really cool action scenes.
2 of the main plotlines were centered around a battle. Ch84? Taln ? And for the first time in over four thousand years, the Bearer of Agonies fought back.
Literal chills, and fist pumps at the same time. Adolin against the Thunderclast was also cinema. Also the trap against the other Shardbearers where Adolin charged forward.
Some of the Szeth duels were also pretty sick. Especially the one in the cognitive realm.
Like.....obviously it has a lot of non action plots, but frankly, if you mainly want to read action, that's cool, I can recommend you some books with a lot more action in them than Stormlight. Even the most well received Sanderson novel (Words of Radiance ) is mostly not action.
There is an abscense of the big epic showdown with all characters involved in this one, so, I get where you're coming from since I was expecting that too. I don't think it's a weakness of the writing in this case, Brandon couldn't do a big showdown, because the main conflict was the contest, which had to be a small group thing. The other issue is he needs to maintain tension for the second half. If he wrapped a bunch of stuff up by killing El and Moash for example, readers would be left feeling like there's no point in the second half of the series. It's got to be more like the way the second book in a trilogy tends to end in fantasy, with main characters split up and a feeling that the villain has won. I think we can trust Brandon to bring it all back together in the next half.
@@jakebishop7822 emperor's soul did have a cool action sequence at the end bishop. Action sequence with taln?. And the way you say it makes me sound like I don't know what to expect from a Sanderson or a Stormlight book, when I do. The tension wasn't there, I didn't feel the stakes and the fight choreography was left vague in so many places, nowhere near the earlier books. That said I'm glad you had a better time with it than I did. So happy that so many people find the joy that I couldn't. Maybe I'm just being a Jealous Jake because of it
I find the ending to be a total character assassination of dalinar. So the idea is that he will renounce his oaths freeing odium and forcing the other shards to deal with him, but in doing so he gives odium a new shard. Problem with this, it has already been established dalinar can let odium leave, he could have done this without renouncing. Renouncing is essentially murdering the stormfather while making his enemy stronger, and crippling his allies, like why would he do this? Bo ado mishram was silly, she's all like kill the humans, gets out and them doesn't kill the humans, so that does not make sense. Moash and El are built up to be major villians and they do nothing... blackthorn being brought back is silly. Much of the dialog is bad. I feel this is by leaps and bounds the worst stormlight book. 6/10 at best. Also dalinars most important words were kinda weak sauce. I think you guys are too hard on the debate scene, getting jasnah to admit she considered assassinating fen is a really good reason to betray the coalition, maybe it could have been better, but taravangian did make a powerful argument. Also taravangian sparing kharbranth shows he has weakness and it shows his ideology lost to dalinars. Taravangian is not meant to be pure evil, he is a conflicted character and it is the kind of thing he would do. There was no reason for tanavast to help odium, like odium losing his power would make honor win, so why would he help odium and compromise his own powers, i dont think that plotline works.
Freeing Odium without the power boost ironically makes him more of a threat as explained in the Sunmakers gambit scenes in Adolin's chapter.
When you have a war with multiple individual participants becoming clearly a bigger threat than anyone else makes winning nearly impossible, have you ever played Settlers of Catan? If Odium leaves as 1 shard than he will end up on another planet, messing with 1 other Shard, and all the Shards not on that planet will just consider it other peoples problem. Which is why just letting him go would not work.
B'ado Mishram still might try to kill all the humans in fairness.
I also loved Taravangian sparing Kharbranth
@jakebishop7822 yes but odium killed 4 shards he was already threat that could not be ignored if off Roshar. No need to make him more powerful. Furthermore there was no reason for dalinar to lose. Despite taravangians posturing the contest was not to the death, if dainar lost he was to become fused, implication: dalinar can lose without dying. So all he needs to do is make gav surrender or unable to fight. Dalinar became honor, just drop gav in shandesmar and it's over. Like the whole ending was incoherent. And dalinar showed up thinking the contest would not be a fight, well why did they not agree on what it was beforehand? Why did odium get to set the parameters? If dalinar can be his own champion, why was odium not his own champion? That's what I was expecting since he could not lose a fight against a mortal and there is no reason he couldn't. If he was not allowed then dalinar would have lost the second he became honor by the same logic that would disqualify honor.
Sanderson has always been a pedestrian writer but must have been covered up by his editor Moshe. Now Moshe is gone Sanderson is free to publish his middle grade level prose. Sanderson is like Nickelback - it kind of sounds like music and it’s popular but it’s not music. Nirvana is music, and Rothfuss is Nirvana.
This comment is hilarious, and I will be ironically quoting it from now on
The term normie, even as a joke, is immensely off-putting
Indeed
It's just meant to be a jokie slang term! I'm a normie, we are all normies about things! It's just an easy and silly way of simply distinguishing that fans who are deep in the fandom/online, are not going to always have an accurate perception of how the media is viewed by the more general public. So many times in fandoms I'm DEEP in, i'll be shocked when I find that the way I've perceived something is VASTLY different to those who just casually enjoy the media.