I agree about the fan videos out there, I'd rather let the book give me the reveal than online speculation. Although, I really did love the way the Worldhopper led up to this reveal, for those who were there or saw the videos online this past week, that was amazing.
You make a very good point about the spiritual realm. Those plotlines also didn't really work for me but I couldn't really explain why. I think you hit the nail on the head; if there aren't any established rules, much of what happens feels a bit "cheap" and "easy".
I think you make a really good point about Moash and Bridge 4. For every character in the book to info dump everything they're feeling, even villains, it was weird to see nothing of his reasoning after having his emotion return.
Totally agreed about Jasnah. What a waste. Toadium's argument about her was weak, and Fen, as a ruler, should know better than to worry about the plotting of rulers. Also, with the reveal that Odium corrupted the humans on Ashyn to make them destroy the planet coming before that argument, it made the argument even more hollow. In fact, I would think with the way she listened to alternative histories, she could have argued that he did that. Second point, if Odium could basically create a Blackthorn, why not just make Dalinar fight Gavilar or Elohkar, Gavinor was a cop out. The whole, tossing an innocent life in front of a changed man is kind of insulting to Dalinar and us as readers. I dunno, those are two points but it left that whole thing as an unsatisfying mess. Also the injection of modern curses and "therapist" really hurt the story IMO. Storms was great no need for the curses of modernity. Good video. Thanks for the commentary
I am TIRED as I write this so I apologize if nothing makes sense. I loved the book & i agree with a lot of what you said! I'd say the kaladin and szeth etc therapy thing didn't fully work for me I feel like all of the characters (in the whole book) often overexplained their feelings in a way that felt more like my psychology textbooks would write it rather than a piece of art that makes me feel their feelings and feel the way they try to improve their mental health. I like that sanderson tries to create accurate depictions of these issues but this sometimes felt sterile. Still liked the kaladin and szeth story though. I loved the wat Nightbloood accidentally got therapy!!!! So fun. (And the spren too i guess!!! sigzils future spren!!!) I agree with you about moash & bridge 4. anyways I enjoyed hearing your thoughts about the booook
Thanks for sharing! I can see what you mean regarding the therapy topic, but I didn't mind too much luckily. The accidental therapy for Nightblood was such a great moment!
That is nicely said. The book literally fall to the other end. From epic fantasy it’s now a therapy session, in an over explaining way for kids who might won’t understand what he says. Quite literally every single character in this book is a broken person and to be sure we know that half of the book is about telling not showing it. This now went so far that ruins the enjoyment of the story.
I Disliked the pacing from the 10day structure. Felt like early days just had less suspense and devalued some of that. The ending without an actual battles of champions seemed to make ending of the last book pointless and makes me kinda dislike it. If instead in the middle of a battle dalinar was losing, and then he gave up his powers and oathes it would have made more sense to me. If that also caused other spren oaths to be Invalid and thats how sizil lost his spren i think it would have worked (though could cause other issues, stormlight is already gone so most radiant powers are gone anyways). I hated 3 characters renouncing oaths. ALSO not a fan of idea of his death not being a thing potentially in the next book. Jasnah parts didnt live up to my own admittedly absurdly high expectations. Loved szeths story and flashbacks that part worked really well for me. Adolins chapters also worked for me I love that he got spren in the end out of respect sorta instead of oaths since oaths seem to be devalued now anyways. (Though being able to renounce oaths with little negative impact seems so broken mechanically) Inclusive type stuff as well as the modern lingo and therpaist type stuff also didnt work for me. Dont hate its in the book just felt out of place the way it was written almost like it was added after the fact instead of naturally part of the story. Renarin cross species love story felt rushed in 10 days to be a thing that could be real. It just seems so fake and forced. It worked better for the flashback as we can assume it happened more organically. Gohstblood story line didnt work for me as shallan stopped them, but it happened anyways so felt like a waste and only served purpose for shallans arc not a factor in the plot itself. Also had bit of an issue with Wit. This was his whole big plan and he was no where around for 99% of this and turns out really had little to no plan. Pros being not fantastic doesn't bother me like it does many. I speed read or listen to alot of these so I tend to undervalue great pros anyways. All this said, I hated RoW until I reread and I will reread this again, but im at like 2.7/5 and shocked at seing it at a 4.5-5 everywhere else. Seems like the gripes are acknowledged by most reviews then they still give it a 5 anyways. Feel like that just devalues a rating system.
The writing from accessible now became flat out bad. He used info dumps before and that never was a good idea but now it gets worse in dialogues, descriptions. Repetition all the way, word usage that doesn’t fit (“it’s valid”, “I have laser sharp…” - what’s a laser, how do you know?).. beside that the book feels too planned, not artistic. Like ok, from a to b and c everything is on place but not really beautiful, just accomplished. Dropping back in Cosmere books fast. I remember when Mistborn came out. We were really impressed. Now?
i'm sad that you dismiss Leyten's death so easily. you probably don't remember who he is so i recommend brushing up on him and you'll realize how much impact there is in this.
I'm going to do my best to recall who he is without looking it up just for fun: I believe Leyten is one of the first if not the first person in Bridge 4 that Kaladin saved. He had a whole argument with Gaz about bringing him since he had an injury. I also believe he was attacked by Szeth right before the scene of fighting Dalinar, Kaladin, and Adolin. This is when he lost the use of his legs and they had a scene talking about joining the cooks and how he said he was bad at it. I thought that was a great scene. Eventually, he regained the use of his legs thanks to radiant powers. Hopefully, I'm not getting anything mixed up with another character. I totally get why he's important on paper, but I feel like I never quite bonded with him or grew to like him as a character so when he died, I didn't really feel anything. It's totally cool to disagree though! I'm glad that it made an impact on others even if it didn't for me.
@@ScottyLuu yeah. In my opinion the stormlight books are n interesting study on how to do side characters. big series like this tend to bloat with too many characters vying for the limelight; cue twot. in this case, sanderson always seems to have thought out their full inner world and motivations. guess he has to with the secret world hoppers and whatnot. i think of the stormlight books as more movie than tv series. the four plus hours epic kind of movie. with that you cant spend too much screentime on all the side characters. *love how arcane tackles this with their musical numbers. with bridge four, i think the idea is that we'll have side stories and standalones like sunlit and the soon to come rock centric story that will allow us to see more of the members and how they see the world. for now most of that stuff adds nothing to the main kaladin, odium narrative and would have been blot. the kind of stuff that ends up on the cut room floor.
Very solid book with the usual incredible payoffs. With also the usual (and ever increasing in recent years) Sandersonisms and faults of being to explanatory, too modernistic, and too on the nose with very modern, millenial/Gen X perspectives of mental health and trauma and so forth. Not sure why every character is a caricature at times of a modern mental health affliction and why every internal thought seems to be shorn of edges so that the reader always is told the proper perspective on mental health and good and bad. Timeless these characters do not feel. But the Payoffs, world building, plotting, those things Sanderson is good at were great here.
Idk, I just finished the book and it felt suuuper preachy about the mental health stuff. The whole book felt very "tell, not show" mental health progression.
I agree about the fan videos out there, I'd rather let the book give me the reveal than online speculation. Although, I really did love the way the Worldhopper led up to this reveal, for those who were there or saw the videos online this past week, that was amazing.
You make a very good point about the spiritual realm. Those plotlines also didn't really work for me but I couldn't really explain why. I think you hit the nail on the head; if there aren't any established rules, much of what happens feels a bit "cheap" and "easy".
I think you make a really good point about Moash and Bridge 4. For every character in the book to info dump everything they're feeling, even villains, it was weird to see nothing of his reasoning after having his emotion return.
Totally agreed about Jasnah. What a waste. Toadium's argument about her was weak, and Fen, as a ruler, should know better than to worry about the plotting of rulers. Also, with the reveal that Odium corrupted the humans on Ashyn to make them destroy the planet coming before that argument, it made the argument even more hollow. In fact, I would think with the way she listened to alternative histories, she could have argued that he did that.
Second point, if Odium could basically create a Blackthorn, why not just make Dalinar fight Gavilar or Elohkar, Gavinor was a cop out. The whole, tossing an innocent life in front of a changed man is kind of insulting to Dalinar and us as readers. I dunno, those are two points but it left that whole thing as an unsatisfying mess.
Also the injection of modern curses and "therapist" really hurt the story IMO. Storms was great no need for the curses of modernity.
Good video. Thanks for the commentary
I am TIRED as I write this so I apologize if nothing makes sense. I loved the book & i agree with a lot of what you said! I'd say the kaladin and szeth etc therapy thing didn't fully work for me I feel like all of the characters (in the whole book) often overexplained their feelings in a way that felt more like my psychology textbooks would write it rather than a piece of art that makes me feel their feelings and feel the way they try to improve their mental health. I like that sanderson tries to create accurate depictions of these issues but this sometimes felt sterile. Still liked the kaladin and szeth story though. I loved the wat Nightbloood accidentally got therapy!!!! So fun. (And the spren too i guess!!! sigzils future spren!!!) I agree with you about moash & bridge 4. anyways I enjoyed hearing your thoughts about the booook
Thanks for sharing! I can see what you mean regarding the therapy topic, but I didn't mind too much luckily. The accidental therapy for Nightblood was such a great moment!
That is nicely said. The book literally fall to the other end. From epic fantasy it’s now a therapy session, in an over explaining way for kids who might won’t understand what he says. Quite literally every single character in this book is a broken person and to be sure we know that half of the book is about telling not showing it. This now went so far that ruins the enjoyment of the story.
I Disliked the pacing from the 10day structure. Felt like early days just had less suspense and devalued some of that.
The ending without an actual battles of champions seemed to make ending of the last book pointless and makes me kinda dislike it. If instead in the middle of a battle dalinar was losing, and then he gave up his powers and oathes it would have made more sense to me. If that also caused other spren oaths to be Invalid and thats how sizil lost his spren i think it would have worked (though could cause other issues, stormlight is already gone so most radiant powers are gone anyways). I hated 3 characters renouncing oaths. ALSO not a fan of idea of his death not being a thing potentially in the next book.
Jasnah parts didnt live up to my own admittedly absurdly high expectations.
Loved szeths story and flashbacks that part worked really well for me.
Adolins chapters also worked for me I love that he got spren in the end out of respect sorta instead of oaths since oaths seem to be devalued now anyways. (Though being able to renounce oaths with little negative impact seems so broken mechanically)
Inclusive type stuff as well as the modern lingo and therpaist type stuff also didnt work for me. Dont hate its in the book just felt out of place the way it was written almost like it was added after the fact instead of naturally part of the story. Renarin cross species love story felt rushed in 10 days to be a thing that could be real. It just seems so fake and forced. It worked better for the flashback as we can assume it happened more organically.
Gohstblood story line didnt work for me as shallan stopped them, but it happened anyways so felt like a waste and only served purpose for shallans arc not a factor in the plot itself.
Also had bit of an issue with Wit. This was his whole big plan and he was no where around for 99% of this and turns out really had little to no plan.
Pros being not fantastic doesn't bother me like it does many. I speed read or listen to alot of these so I tend to undervalue great pros anyways.
All this said, I hated RoW until I reread and I will reread this again, but im at like 2.7/5 and shocked at seing it at a 4.5-5 everywhere else. Seems like the gripes are acknowledged by most reviews then they still give it a 5 anyways. Feel like that just devalues a rating system.
The writing from accessible now became flat out bad. He used info dumps before and that never was a good idea but now it gets worse in dialogues, descriptions. Repetition all the way, word usage that doesn’t fit (“it’s valid”, “I have laser sharp…” - what’s a laser, how do you know?)..
beside that the book feels too planned, not artistic. Like ok, from a to b and c everything is on place but not really beautiful, just accomplished. Dropping back in Cosmere books fast. I remember when Mistborn came out. We were really impressed. Now?
This was definitely the weakest book for me. It honestly left such a sour taste in my mouth.
i'm sad that you dismiss Leyten's death so easily. you probably don't remember who he is so i recommend brushing up on him and you'll realize how much impact there is in this.
I'm going to do my best to recall who he is without looking it up just for fun:
I believe Leyten is one of the first if not the first person in Bridge 4 that Kaladin saved. He had a whole argument with Gaz about bringing him since he had an injury.
I also believe he was attacked by Szeth right before the scene of fighting Dalinar, Kaladin, and Adolin. This is when he lost the use of his legs and they had a scene talking about joining the cooks and how he said he was bad at it. I thought that was a great scene.
Eventually, he regained the use of his legs thanks to radiant powers.
Hopefully, I'm not getting anything mixed up with another character. I totally get why he's important on paper, but I feel like I never quite bonded with him or grew to like him as a character so when he died, I didn't really feel anything.
It's totally cool to disagree though! I'm glad that it made an impact on others even if it didn't for me.
@@ScottyLuu yeah. In my opinion the stormlight books are n interesting study on how to do side characters. big series like this tend to bloat with too many characters vying for the limelight; cue twot. in this case, sanderson always seems to have thought out their full inner world and motivations. guess he has to with the secret world hoppers and whatnot.
i think of the stormlight books as more movie than tv series. the four plus hours epic kind of movie. with that you cant spend too much screentime on all the side characters. *love how arcane tackles this with their musical numbers.
with bridge four, i think the idea is that we'll have side stories and standalones like sunlit and the soon to come rock centric story that will allow us to see more of the members and how they see the world. for now most of that stuff adds nothing to the main kaladin, odium narrative and would have been blot. the kind of stuff that ends up on the cut room floor.
Very solid book with the usual incredible payoffs. With also the usual (and ever increasing in recent years) Sandersonisms and faults of being to explanatory, too modernistic, and too on the nose with very modern, millenial/Gen X perspectives of mental health and trauma and so forth. Not sure why every character is a caricature at times of a modern mental health affliction and why every internal thought seems to be shorn of edges so that the reader always is told the proper perspective on mental health and good and bad. Timeless these characters do not feel.
But the Payoffs, world building, plotting, those things Sanderson is good at were great here.
Idk, I just finished the book and it felt suuuper preachy about the mental health stuff. The whole book felt very "tell, not show" mental health progression.
Worst book in the series for sure.
I hated what they did to Kaladin with the “therapy” gimmick