Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive

Something I just realized, but with Navani becoming a… you know, she now has a bond with the Dungeon Core of Urithiru. Navani is now a Dungeon Keeper… and you can BET Brandon knows about the genre.

Edited by SCMof2814 on Mar 4th 2021 at 9:47:13 PM

Just realized, remember how were comparing Ruin and Odium? Well, they both got went the same way: killed because of deliberate actions of the other Shard they share the planet with, who use their superior ability to see into the future to do it, using people the other that Odium/Ruin thought they could subvert and control to deal the fatal blow, and both are replaced by a new bearer of the Shard. Notably, the change to a new bearer makes the Shard overall ‘’stronger’’. While the new bearer of Ruin’s power is a good man who intends to be hands-off and use his power to affect the world as little as possible, taking the power on a new path, the new Odium intends to stay the course Rayse set, and is likely an even more capable and evil force than the previous one. And while Ati’s soul might to the the beyond, since he’s only normal dead, Rayse is NIGHTBLOOD dead. The investiture making up his soul has been EATEN. It’s unlikely anything of him went Beyond. So literally EVEN IN DEATH, they’re foils for each other.

Edited by SCMof2814 on Mar 4th 2021 at 9:49:18 PM

So I've finally started Rhythm of War. Still just at the start.

Sanderson really seems to like the prologues reshaping everything we thought we knew. I know some folks have speculated before that Gavilar was a shit but that was never my impression of him. My feeble grasp of his character was that he understood how things are now wasn't how they should be. It would take a lot to set things aright but setting them right was still his goal. ROW's prologue makes him out be little more than a gloryhound with an inflated sense of self-worth. So different from Dalinar's picture of how Gavilar had changed to become more...contemplative and honorable in his old age.

Maybe we're too used to myopic thinking these days and the answer really is in the middle. To some people, Gavilar was a good, kind man. To his wife...not so much. She basically does say this, although you can read it as the face he presented to others was a mask and the face Navani saw was the truth.

Edited by Nikkolas on Mar 15th 2021 at 11:51:45 AM

You'll note that Navani says he brings out the worst in her, too. I'm not sure she's right in her belief that he's just a good man who gets angry around her specifically, though. His thing with inviting the famous guy just so that Navani can't talk to him is a premeditated malice that can't be waved off as a few harsh words.

Holy fucking shit, I'm not quite done with ROW yet but I just gotta say this.....

I once was like 'I root for Taravangian just like how you might root for Stannis in ASOIAF. You know they won't win but you still root them on."

I was drastically underestimating how right I was to back Taravangian ever since the end of Way of Kings.

I'll have a lot more to say and ask about laer but...so giddy.

Edited by Nikkolas on Mar 30th 2021 at 9:57:48 AM

I never really thought about it till now for some reason but the Shards are the closest things to gods in the Cosmere, correct? They see and understand the future better than anyone can so far as I know.

And yet, one prophecy trumped two Shards, the Hero of Ages. Some fate or destiny was set into motion thousands of years ago and both Ruin and Preservation were compelled down it.

Perhaps a being mightier than even Shards exists? Dalinar's potential true God?

In any event, I finished ROW.

My impression is this is a lot of peoples' least favorite TSA novel and I agree. The flashbacks don't add much, the middle bits with Kaladin and Navani drag, blah blah, everyone has already made the same criticism I'll make. This book really isn't helped by Oathbringer being the bet book so far.

What prompted me to really get started on this was a message on Reddit. Somebody wanted to get my opinion on something vague at the end of ROW, all based on a Reddit thread I had made. I gotta get back in touch with that person still but my best guess is they are referring to the "Lord of Scars" and my Reddit thread insisting on Kelsier being a great hero and not a sociopath like Sanderson has claimed. I remain....uncertain until we know more. In any event, it finally also prompted me to read Secret History.

I feel like the ending, exciting as it was, was also too sudden. I need to think more on that but for all my love of Taravangian, this was apparently always planned but I don't think built up nearly well enough.

Any thoughts on who the Champions will be? I got nothing. Some think it will be a restored Talm for Dalinar.

I was thinking Moash but if Kal isn't Dalinar's Champion, I dunno what purpose Moash even serves anymore.

I dunno if I'm to believe Nale's claim that Gavilar was intending to betray the Listeners. Maybe Book 5's prologue will be from his perspective and we'll finally get the ful story.

I liked Raboniel. I cried like a baby with Teft and Tien. The book was still fine with good points but I'm far more excited for Book 5, really.

It was Preservation's prophecy. His plan, to trick Ruin and find someone to inherit both their power. That doesn't preclude an ultimate god above the Shards or even above Adonalsium, but it's stated several times that Preservation planned everything. The Gender Neutral Writing of the prophecy, for example, was specifically a way to trick Ruin into focusing on Vin when the real Hero was Sazed.

Oh. I just thought his ultimate goal was Vin. I didn't know he actually had a plan beyond that. My bad.

So do different magic systems work on different planets? Humans used surgebinding on their old world and Roshar, right?

I'm just reading Mistborn Secret History and Wit took that metal that makes you a mistborn and wondering if he can just pop that into anyone's mouth in the Cosmere and they become a mistborn?

Edited by Nikkolas on Apr 1st 2021 at 5:14:39 AM

tldr, yes, magic systems from one world will work on others (except the ones from Sel, which don't even work on other parts of Sel), but there are logistics considerations that make actually using them more difficult.

Once you have access to a particular usage of Investiture, you can use it anywhere — with the exception of the forms used on Sel. Most types of Investiture use are tied to the Spiritual realm, which has no sense of location, so is equally available regardless of where you are in the Material realm. However, Investiture use on Sel is partially tied to the Cognitive realm, so the systems there (eg, Aons from Elantris and Forgery from The Emperor's Soul) do depend on your location.

Of course, it's probably possible to cheese the system via Identity or Connection hacking so that you can still use those forms of Investiture regardless of your location in the Material realm.

That said, not all forms of Investiture are created equal. If you're used to using Stormlight to fuel your abilities, then using a different form of Investiture is probably possible, but would take some work. But Stormlight also seems to be relatively boring, pure Investiture — something like Breath is a pretty specific type of Investiture, and it would likely be a lot harder to substitute other forms of Investiture for it. It's also going to be harder (but not impossible) to find things like allomancy-grade metals on other worlds, even if allomancy itself functions normally.

Edited by NativeJovian on Apr 1st 2021 at 3:54:03 PM

The Ire from Mistborn: Secret History seem to have hacked the Dor enough to get their stuff working offworld, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions about them.

Stormlight, as noted, appears to be something like "pure" Investiture, but it is closely Connected to Roshar. According Mraize, it (and presumably Lifelight and Voidlight) is currently unable to leave the Greater Roshar system, nor is anyone highly Invested with them like Surgebinders and Fused.

We also see Hoid using both Breath and Allomancy on Roshar, so again it's certainly possible. There's just usually a trick to it. For example, Hoid is a Surgebinder now, but there's no sign that he can just breathe in Stormlight and use that for any of his other magic systems.

On the flip side, there have been some indications that Investiture is Investiture, regardless of form. The most direct example I can think of is in Oathbringer, when Hoid has a jar of black sand that turns white in Shallan's presence, presumably reacting to her Stormlight. In White Sand, sand that's been used recently is black and it turns white again when it's "recharged" by the sun (which presumably involves imbuing it with Investiture somehow).

Unrelated: I still haven't actually started Rhythm of War. It's been sitting on my nightstand since November when my pre-ordered copy arrived. It's not that I've lost interest or anything, it's just that starting a thousand-odd page book feels like work and I have not been able to muster up the energy to start that sort of long-term project. That and, you know, not feeling a lot of urgency to get through it since it's not like we're expecting book five any time soon.

I'll start it eventually and probably comment in here about it as I read through.

I can't remember if it was said in Rhythm of War or in a Word of Brandon, but the more Investiture a person or object has, the harder it is to move it away from its native world. So even if you can use your Investiture on another world, actually getting there could be difficult.

I finally started Rhythm of War. Gotten through Part One so far. It's mostly been recap of things that happened during the timeskip between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, but Sanderson manages to do that without it being boring. The way he writes avoids having characters feel completely static and unchanging when they're out of focus, but also manages to avoid having major character development moments happening off-screen in a way that feels unsatisfying. That's a tricky balance, but dang if he doesn't nail it. He's covering "what happened since the last time we saw these people" and "where are things headed next" at the same time, and it gives the story multiple layers that I love.

I'm not entirely clear on how long the timeskip between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War actually is, but it definitely feels like the characters needed the break to start processing some of their issues. For the first three books they were basically fighting nonstop against an immediate lethal threat, so they didn't have the luxury of worrying about anything but surviving the immediate crisis. The war is still on and they're still in danger, of course, but now they understand the nature of the threat and are able to work toward meeting it, rather than frantically dealing with something that's about to stab them in the face right now. That's given the characters some time to breathe, and allows issues they've been shoving aside to come to the fore again.

The fact that those issues are being addressed now is also refreshing. For a lot of authors, those personal problems are something that drags down the character for their whole arc. They're only addressed and dealt with at the climax, and overcoming them is what gives the character the push they need to save the day when the moment is right. Sanderson does this too, of course — that's basically Kaladin's arc in the first book, complete with swearing the second oath to gain the powers he needed to win the fight. But Sanderson doesn't stop there like so many other authors do. One dramatic scene doesn't fix a problem like depression, or trauma, or the regret of a lifetime misspent. It's something you have to work for, not just once, but continually, for years, if not forever, and I'm glad to see Sanderson reflecting this.

My only concern at this point is how much actual progress we're going to see on that front. The book is Rhythm of War, so I'm expecting there to be more focus on Venli. She didn't feel like the title character in Part One, but like I said, Part One was mostly catching up and setting up, so there's plenty of time for her to get more limelight... but it makes me worry for Kaladin's and Shallan's arcs a little. It also occurs to me that it's an extremely Brandon Sanderson thing to spend 200 pages on not-the-main-characters and then be like "eh, no problem, plenty of book left to get to that".

Part One did make Venli's current attitude and motivation clearer, which I appreciate. She doesn't like the Fused but she doesn't like humans either, and what she really wants more than anything is for her people to be free of both of them. To be honest, I don't really remember how well this lines up with her characterization in Oathbringer — it feels like in Oathbringer she was more worried about her immediate safety and less worried about long-term concerns, but I could be misremembering. On the other hand, that could just be what the timeskip has done for her, just like it did for everything else. With day-to-day survival a less pressing concern, she has more time to worry about the farther future.

Anyway, I'm enjoying it so far, but we're clearly still building up. It's not clear yet what the main conflict of the book will entail, but things haven't been so slow that I'm getting impatient to find out.

Edited by NativeJovian on Jul 18th 2021 at 12:32:23 PM

If you don’t mind having general information about which characters are in focus in this book (no plot info): There’s plenty of Kaladin and Shallan, as well as Venli and Navani. Dalinar is much more out of focus.

Finished Part Two. Gonna folderize it because I'm going to talk explicitly about plot stuff this time.

So yeah. tldr, some good bits but mostly found this part disappointing. Hoping this is a low point in the writing quality that's just being ham-fisted about setting things up for later developments.

Edited by NativeJovian on Jul 22nd 2021 at 11:07:09 AM

Finished Part Three. No real surprises here, it follows on more or less how I expected from Part Two. Renarin does finally show up, but he's treated more like a plot device than a character, and we get very little of what he's been doing or how he feels about anything. We get to learn more about the Sibling, which I liked, but I still don't like the "oh no gotta do everything RIGHT NOW or very bad things!!!" way they're going about it. I genuinely think this whole section would have been better off without the heightened urgency to add increased stakes.

Done with part four. Kaladin and Shallan's plots still feel like retreads. Andolin got some payoff but nothing super exciting. The dynamic between Navani and Raboniel is fun, and I do enjoy the doing-magic-science bits, but I feel like the whole sequence would be better if Raboniel was the prisoner and the conflict was Navani trying to pry information out of her while Raboniel tries to outwit her. As is, the conflict is too one-sided and the result feels like a foregone conclusion. Raboniel holds all the cards and can do whatever she wants with no consequences, so of course Navani keeps coming up short. I can't say for certain until I actually finish the book, but right now I can't help but think that it all would have worked better if Raboniel somehow allowed herself to be captured and taken to Urithiru, then worked with Navani to "fix" the Sibling, which in the end resulted in Raboniel being able to corrupt them with voidlight and that led to the Fused invasion.

I'm not sure where the Urithiru plot is headed for now, but I really hope it ends up being something more interesting than "Kaladin swears the Fourth Ideal, gets his full Windrunner powers back, saves the Sibling and reactivates their anti-voidlight defenses, then drives out the Fused with the restored Radiants and maybe Dalinar's army from a restored Oathgate". The other obvious possibility is Navani bonds the Sibling to become a second Bondsmith — probably under duress — and they use that bond and Navani's newfound knowledge of Light theory to accomplish the same thing vis-a-vis restoring the anti-voidlight defenses, etc etc. Either of which would feel a little cheap, as we've done "save the day with sudden Radiant power upgrade" repeatedly at this point.

Aaaand finished the book. It managed to pull some surprising stuff out at the end, but ultimately it mostly feels like 90% of it is retreading ground that's already been covered. I feel like once all ten Stormlight Archive books are out, you could safely skip parts one through four of Rhythm of War and still get all the important story stuff just in part five.

The Urithiru plot ends basically exactly how I was afraid it would, except we get a twofer. We got Kaladin swearing the Fourth Ideal and Navani bonding the Sibling. The stuff with a handful of Fused who defected rather than participate in a massacre was an interesting wrinkle but didn't get much focus. Raboniel permanently dying was unexpected, but largely serves to make this plot even more self-contained — since Raboniel is never going to show up again, her relationship with Navani or her weird "I want to end the war in any way necessary, by any means necessary, with any result I can get" motivation end up being irrelevant. I also kinda feel like they introduced too many new Light mechanics at once. You've got different kinds of mixed light, and the harmonized Rhythms that allow for it, and anti-Light, all of which can have different effects when used in different ways on different things, and it feels like they might have been better off introducing one major thing now and having them figure out the rest of it more slowly, over time in later books. The "one major thing" would have to be anti-light so they can kill spren and Fused, so "hey we took this one horrible thing and used it to figure out a bunch of other useful non-horrible things" would have been nice.

There's also the Odium/Taravangian stuff, which felt a little bit out of left field after Dalinar (and everything else outside Urithiru) was out of focus for so much of the book. Killing off Rayse was certainly unexpected, but I'm not sure there's much point to it if it's not actually going to change anything? At least, it's certainly not a dramatic world-changing difference like it was when Sazed became the vessel for Ruin. Taravangian becoming Odium's vessel feels like a stretch — he was never hateful, so it doesn't feel like a good fit. Yeah, Cultivation shenanigans were involved to give him "capacity" to feel super deeply, and Odium theoretically includes all strong emotions rather than just negative ones, but it still feels like a stretch.

I'm probably going to go back in this thread and read people's thoughts on the book now that I've finished, but I've basically been talking to myself in this thread for the last week, so I probably won't reply to any of the old stuff unless something super interesting occurs to me.

According to Odium, he's supposed to be Passion rather than specifically hatred. "Odium" was a name that was given to him. Taravangian's connection to the shard is through his high empathy days. Also, while he's still bound by the promise Rayse made, his goals after the duel in ten days will be different. He's a guy who makes big plans and wants to fix things, but we've seen that his idea of fixing things isn't the greatest. If all goes well, he's going to be a more ambitious, creative, and proactive villain.

I'm not sure Raboniel's motivation is irrelevant, because it's the entire reason that it's now possible to kill both Fused and spren. Where before the war could continue forever as long as there were human and singer bodies to throw into it, now everyone involved is vulnerable. She's getting her wish in death.

I don't think that Odium is the most reliable source of information on Odium. Of course he's going to say "I'm not a god of hatred, I'm a god of emotions, emotions are good right?" Even if it's technically true, and his shard does cover all emotion, we've seen that he's still driven largely by hate. In any case, like I said, I can buy Taravangian being suitable as Odium's vessel due to Cultivation's manipulations, but it just feels a bit off. I accept it because the story says point-blank that that's what's happening, not because I read the bit where Taravangian gets Odium's shard and thought "oh yeah, that makes sense". Taravangian has always been defined by cold-blooded dispassionate calculation, the exact opposite of Odium's whole deal. Yeah, he's had his highly emotional days to contrast his highly intelligent days, but those were portrayed as being a deviation from his usual self, not an aspect of his true self, so to find out that it "counts" for the purposes of becoming the god of emotion is... meh.

The fact that Taravangian then immediately starts plotting to rule the Cosmere also feels off. Taravangian didn't want to rule anything. He wanted to save people. From Odium, specifically. Now he is Odium and he just... keeps doing what Rayse was doing. It doesn't seem like he's being affected by the nature of Odium's shard. He's not being driven by hatred or emotion in general. He's back to his cold, dispassionate planning — but now instead of saving own people, he's planning to spread his influence as Odium to the entire Cosmere. That doesn't feel like Odium or Taravangian.

Regarding Raboniel, my point isn't that her specific motivation wasn't important for any of the plot outcomes driven by her actions. She could have just been an evil Fused trying to figure out how to kill spren, and it turns out that (unsurprisingly) Fused can be killed in the same way but with anti-voidlight replacing anti-stormlight. Ultimately, she's a one-book character who accomplishes what the plot needs of her and then dies — but that feels like a waste because she's got an interesting perspective and a unique motivation. Now that she's dead and Leshwi has defected, we no longer have any loyalist Fused characters in the case. There's El, whatever their deal is, but they're new and there's clearly something different about them compared to the rest of the Fused.

I think the point is that Taravangian isn't a good match for Odium, and could only bond the Shard because of his boon/curse. But once the Shard's bonded, it's his to keep, so we now have the Shard's Intent trying to twist Taravangian one way, while his cold pragmatism tries to twist it another way, and the excitement is in seeing how that plays out.

As for conquering the Cosmere: while Taravangian is definitely devoted to saving people, he's also an utter control freak about it. His way of saving the world is to make everyone follow his plan, by force or deception if necessary, without ever seeking input from anyone else. So with a god's power at his command, and a god's awareness of other worlds, I totally buy that Taravangian would appoint himself protector of all the Cosmere's worlds, and would decide the best way to do that is to seize control of everything.

One of the elements of the Diagram was “You must become king. Of everything.” He wanted to rule the world in order to ‘save everyone.’ Now he wants to rule the Cosmere in order to ‘save everyone.’ His key flaw was belief that he was absolutely right about what needed to be done to benefit the most people, and that therefore any atrocities he committed to that end were justifiable. Now he’s applying that same attitude in a wider sphere with greater power.

I dunno where to put this since it concerns two very different fictional works but the idea struck me after watching the latest dubbed ep of My Hero Academia and also talking to somebody on Discord who is presently reading Oathbringer for the first time.

Dalinar is, so far as I can tell, a solid contender for the best, most beloved main character in TSA. I agree with that - he's def my favorite. In spite of his past deeds, he gets none of the "I will NEVER forgive him" that Endeavor gets from a certain part of the MHA fandom. Maybe it's just apples and oranges but the contrast randomly hit me. I've never seen the concentrated vitriol for Dalinar that Endeavor got.

Perhaps it's as simple as Dalinar was introduced to us after already starting his path to redemption while Endeavor was introduced while still fully immersed in his shittiness.

Edited by Nikkolas on Aug 14th 2021 at 4:58:52 AM

There's a couple of other factors I could add. One is that Dalinar was never a shit to his kids the way Endeavor was, and he was kind of a shit to his wife, but you can tell from the narrative that he was trying to meet her halfway as best he could (and largely failing, but we can see that he's trying).

Which actually leads into what I think is the biggest difference: the medium of the story allows us to see inside his head. We can see the good parts of him struggling to manifest even when he was at his worst. Whereas we can only judge Endeavor by his actions.

Edited by Anura on Aug 14th 2021 at 12:03:32 PM