@@17thShard Hi Eric, I would like to hope people aren't just skipping critique about the book for the sake of it, that would make us sycophants; I get the feeling it's specifically what, and how, certain views were expressed that is driving conversation.
Thanks. This was a bit negative for my taste -unfairly negative and smug. Not a fun or enjoyable listen. “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment."
The Kaladin therapy rants are really weird and entirely miss the mark IMO. No shit a dude who is literally trying - without ANY education on how CBT or trauma works - to help other people is going to primarily rely on his own experience. What was that “OH A TIEN?? EVERYTHING HAS TO BE TIEN?” Rant from Shannon? Yes, in fact, a twenty-something year old kid who is still processing his own trauma is going to filter other people’s experiences through his own life. He’s been trying this for 4 days, obviously he’s not going to be great at it.
Well, I do feel like my point was missed, too, because my point was: this was a Szeth moment that got turned into a Kaladin one. I wanted to experience the emotions and breakthrough Szeth was having much, much more than I wanted to experience Kal whiffing it. Not only was it a whiff of the character, but the fact that one could feasibly kindasorta defend Kal being so bad at this misses the point, because the book didn't need to abruptly pull away from Szeth to go to Kaladin and re-center him. While Szeth is having a breakdown. It's about what the book decided was important. And hey, as long as the book wants me to focus on Kaladin instead of Szeth, maybe Kaladin could have been less infuriating about it.
@ okay I’m just going to quote what you actually said on the pod, so you can understand why people may have missed your point. Because that’s not what you expressed at all. “Kaladin, Mr connection, Mr I’m gonna meet you where you’re at, Mr oh I’m halfway through this book and I’m supposed to be pretty good at this therapy thing right now, just a total whiff, he can’t understand Seth except through the lens of his own story?? Oh, it’s a tien?? Are you tien?? …He’s supposed to, by this point, Mr almost fifth oath, he’s been through this arc 4 books in a row, and Kaladin can’t understand or sympathize with someone unless it’s either me or tien - WHO ARE YOU?? This is supposed to be what you’re good at right now, IN THIS BOOK!“
@@greywatch9365 and to be clear, I normally love and agree with many of your takes, but I do not think this one came off the way you wanted or intended it to lol.
@@Laloslawyer I mean, yeah, it was a long segment of the episode, and I started off the entire section with talking about valour stolen from Szeth by Kaladin. And now you know! It is correct to say that yes, I disliked that it for the reasons you said, but also... for even MORE reasons than you thought I was saying it. I personally don't find anything that depends on it being okay for it to be bad as satisfying answers. It doesn't make it more satisfying in my eyes, and the emotional core of why I hated it remains untouched.
Idk please correct me if I'm wrong, but my read on the flute scene was that Kaladin had not suddenly become a master, nor was he even playing music the whole time but the Wind was bringing in bits and pieces of Kaladin's various practice sessions that were good/decent to create a cohesive song
Yeah that was my read. Also, the scene read to me not as magically changing Nale's mind but instead forcing Nale to confront his emotions and doubts himself. Like, it seemed like Nale KNEW that if Kaladin finished the story his conscience and emotions would reassert itself, almost like he kind of wanted that to happen. Also, Kaladin DID utilize some pretty destabilizing and potent lines during the story; "is it your emotions you can't trust, or your mind?" was really strong! I thought he did a good job!
Szeth killed a member of bridge 4 and paralyzed another and tried to kill Dalinar twice. Kaladin has had interactions with Szeth in past all extremely negative.
Not to mention the countless other people Kal knows Szeth killed in his various other assassinations. In their early interactions on the trip Szeth in so many words accuses Kal of being weak, useless, and a coward. Szeth never apologizes or takes it back by the way. So yeah it is perfectly understandable for Kal, who is notably not a trained psychologist, after spending all of 2 days with this psychopath would question whether he should just give up and let this guy end himself.
@@Lemerney Kal specifically mentions how Szeth has killed hundreds of people and he is clearly miffed when Szeth says Dalinar sent him away because he is useless or when Szeth says he's a coward. We already know Kaladin's feelings on assasins and Szeth specifically. He has been giving Szeth side eye since the end of OB. People are already complaining there was too much telling rather than showing or there is too much reflecting about feelings in the book. I don't think it would have helped to have Kal specifically enumerate all reasons why Szeth is a deplorable person. We get the general idea from him questioning whether Szeth deserves to die.
@@Lemerney There is an early chapter where Kaladin specifically wonders if he should let Szeth kill himself after the finish the quest. He quickly quashes the idea but it absolutely does cross his mind.
One of my favorite thoughts relating to the idea of Odium being "God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context," is that the same is true of Honor. Honor is equally separated from its context, from the virtues, the Shardic intents, that give it meaning: (Spoilers for the 16th Shard) Devotion, Mercy, and Reason. The Shard of Honor is literally Honor without Reason.
Yeah I think there's quote from this book - in Tanavast or Hoid's POV - about all the Shards being separated from God's divine love which "went to the best of them - Aona".
If he does an Aona Novella that would be heartbreaking. I also like what he said about Ati. Ati was the best of them all. Nicest?! If you read mistborn era 1 you would have a different perspective of Ati. Leras the most brave…secret history reveals something different. I really want a book about shards and how they affect people who hold them.
I need to know what the situation with Adonalsium was pre-Shattering so I can definitively say that killing God was a bad idea. Because there's zero universe when having these fragments of divinity rolling around was gonna end well
I was thinking about this, too, with everything we saw with the other shards so far. I was glad to see it discussed in more detail canonically. It'll be interesting to see it affect the plot more, going forward.
I agree! On my first read I was frustrated when we had to switch POVs. Especially to less interesting POVs. But didn’t feel the length it was well paced.
shannon was so obnoxious about kaladin. Yes, szeth WAS LIKE TIEN. He was yanked out of his childhood to join the military, JUST LIKE TIEN. He was tien if tien was forced to become a killer, and brainwashed to follow orders and laws without thought. Shannon has such a terrible view of what therapy is, and I can't believe she thinks using a framework someone understands to try and relate to someone else is somehow selfish. Did people think we weren't going to be getting kaladins perspectives on what szeth was going through? "Was that your brothers?" This is a FINE QUESTION TO ASK! Szeth has been short with kaladin up to this point, and it's not unreasonable to assume he may have had another sibling he hadn't mentioned. Kaladin is trying to figure out why the stoic assassin is suddenly breaking down crying at a toy. Kaladin has a similar token of his brothers in the carved horse. So Kaladin was wrong about what the toy was, but not in his assumption that it could've been a reminder of different times to szeth. Literally everyone uses a framework of their own life to try and understand others, and yes, szeth is sufficiently different and closed off that kaladin finding it difficult to relate to is to me, totally normal, and anyone thinking it's weird to have trouble relating to someone who is being very closed off is themselves closeminded in assuming everyone should infinitely be able to understand everyone and everything.
I mean, I would have loved to get at least Szeth's on what what Szeth was going through. :) Also, Kaladin has already heard Szeth describe his family. He knows Szeth has a big sister and not a little brother. This is information he does have already. It was a deeply myopic moment where Kaladin did put his life overwriting Szeth's to understand him, and in the moment where I nearly had a strong emotion from this book with Szeth and the sheep plushie, being forced out of the moment by a silly unthoughtful question did give me a bad emotional reaction. It doesn't have to be yours, but yes, actually, my emotional reaction to the scene does make sense. Now it doesn't have to be your emotional reaction, but I'm not obnoxious for having it. Be well.
I think part of it is that Kal comes across centering himself a bit too much (which is subjective). Szeth is similar to Tien, but not the same. Kal spends a lot of time thinking Szeth is like him, then like Tien without really considering a third option (or partitioning aspects of Szeth’s story into other characters he’s helped, known, etc). IMO, didn’t bother me, but Kal did some across very annoying and unhelpful for much of the arc with some good moments (like the stew).
4:14:50 - the fact that Karbranth was spared was definitely meant to undermine Taravangian. He is so obsessed with doing what is right despite the difficulty, and fails in this regard. He is ultimately proven a hypocrite (as we all are, but at least we admit it).
Sometimes being too close to something can be a bad thing in terms of enjoyment. If you notice, most of the discontent is about a preferred outcome not being selected by the author, rather than just experiencing the content. "Brandon should have..."
Yeah I was gonna say... its so wierd to have a collection of superfans who are all in lockstep agreement that they hate all/most of the main characters.
@ absolutely. These books wouldn’t be as amazing if everyone just agreed on everything. The discussion and back and forth IS the journey. Thanks to all you and the team do on that front. Thanks that we have BS to provide the destination.
@@_argent Of course you were a great host! You put a lot of thought into how to structure this episode and were great at that sense of how to lead a discussion and when to move things on and suggest alternative explanations!
I think in some of the Szeth Kaladin area people were somewhat off point in Kaladin "stealing the spotlight" from Szeth. First of all, as others have said, Kaladin isn't some kind of mental health expert. He is working with essentially no data, and has been working on this project for a month. Kaladin was never really trying to be a good therapist, despite therapy words being forced into his mouth by the author. Kaladin came through for Szeth as a hero by standing strong when Szeth felt weak and uncertain and then allowing (and telling) Szeth to make the tough choices he had been unable to make up to that point. He took up the authority in moments where Szeth REQUIRED an authority and then handed the choices back to Szeth, saying he wouldn't choose for him. Kaladin didn't even really like Szeth at the beginning of this situation. He was forced to work with him due to his mission, due to being a soldier, and by the end he was standing by Szeth to fulfill his oath to protect. A large point of Szeth's character is that he DOES NOT WANT THE SPOTLIGHT but is forced to do some of the most negative and public acts in the story. Not everyone has to be turned into a turbo confident and self motivated individual in a 10 day span. Kaladin is laying the ground work by being a good friend and standing up when Szeth needs help.
yeah I felt that him taking a stand for not fighting Nale and asking for help was really massive growth from him instead of just being an excuse for kaladin to fight like I've seen some people argue for
Kind of sad that the reactions have been on the more negative side. I'm really hoping that the community doesn't lose sight of their love for the series because of some flaws they perceive in the books, I feel like this is what happened with The Wheel of Time community and a lot of conversations about the books are about the minor things people don't like nowadays. Not to say that y'alls negativity and criticism isn't valid I just hope it doesn't overshadow how much we all love the series.
I've said this in a few comments, but I think the thing to remember is: the vast majority of episodes we don't really put on our Critique Hat. If we are analyzing stuff that just usually isn't what we do (sometimes there is stuff to complain about, of course). Whereas Reactions episodes we do get to say our opinions effectively. I'll just say, if any cast members truly dislike things overall, I doubt they would have motivation to come on the show. This venture is paying for no one's rent. There's no financial incentive to be on huge episodes if people hated the stuff :) I think in this case, a lot of us feel the ideas on Wind and Truth were good, but could have been executed better. And if people reading this loved the book, awesome! I'm glad! I did too! I'll just say reactions on Discord and the forum is much more mixed. I think our episodes reflect that. -Eric
@@17thShard yeah that's fair, sorry if it came off as me saying you guys shouldn't be critical. Obviously the most important thing is getting your actual opinions out there.
@@17thShardThank you guys for voicing your genuine feelings in reacts! It’s obvious to me that everyone in this community loves the cosmere but the criticism makes it feel like a real discussion from the heart. Reacts would feel so bleh if it was just non-stop gushing
The danger with getting to super-fan status and also having to wait years between books... you form your own head-canon and theories, and when the author deviates from those, it's disappointing. With the pre-conceptions the cast here seem to have, I understand the gripes. I just don't share most of those preconceptions and think much of it was less Brandon "missing the mark" and more that "the mark" was not Brandon's mark. That said, I do agree with quite a few of the opinions that Brandon could've done better for some things in this book. It certainly needed another round of revisions / editing for language and tone - I've never had Brandon's writing throw me out of a book before. It did here.
Yeah, it's definitely a mismatch of expectations. But I think this is pretty natural for a big series, too. This book, like RoW, has been divisive, and the reasons why people like or dislike are all over the place. -Eric
Agreed, I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with forming your own theories etc, just that it’s why reality can end up disappointing - the more you’ve thrown into a theory the more the risk. I do hope Brandon actually listens to this episode though, because I think he’d learn quite a bit from it. Personally, I think he could do with slowing down a little bit and examining how past books have been understood vs how he’d intended them.
@@mattwilcoxuk I... don't know that I came into this with any theories, honestly! Everything presented as an alternative came after the fact while trying to figure out, internally, the vibes after "huh, man, why didn't that work for me?" and throwing stuff at the wall as a suggestion for my personal feelings only. If I can say anything about the notions I came into the book with, I actually didn't think I was going to care about Szeth this much. I thought the Kaladin and Szeth story balance was going to be even more balanced in Kaladin's favour than it turned out to be, so what happened was a very pleasant surprise in how well Brandon wrote Szeth! It's just... the /sauce/ on Szeth transformed me so much WHILE reading this book that the reaction I had was completely new and unexpected, only in the time of reading WaT.
Fair. People react how they react and take different things from the same material. I’ll be re-reading keeping this episode in mind. Personally I quite *like* (some of) the things that were complaints in the later half. I don’t want a book that’s “only write a thing if it’s directly relevant to some other part of the story” because that makes worlds small. I feel that making every part of every scene “relevant” would be more of a “for the fans” choice than anything else could be. I like having no idea why or how Taln tried to off Cultivation. I like the fact that being dropped in media res requires lacking context, and not knowing details to the general gist. I do think the journey of those visions was needed. Etc. Wrapping up a series still needs to be a story, as much as Way of Kings was - and that was nothing *but* mystery and scene vibes - it’s why we liked it. Szeth and Kaladin points… yeah I agree with a few of those criticisms for sure.
Hoid was super cool in this book. Idk how Chana attended the Spiritual Realm wedding for realsies, but the fact that Hoid cannot be replicated by visions which are made of pure and bountiful (maybe unlimited) Investiture is really eye-opening. The guy went from an immortal to a god, in my eyes. We cannot sleep on how wild and somewhat terrifying that information should be to us.
I think a lot of negativity is from how much everyone built up the book in their minds before release. I listened to a video talking about ‘are expectations just too high for SA5?’ After hearing the mixed to negative reactions and I think that’s a lot of why people are disappointed. We have had years building up these 10 days in our minds (like with the contract for example, expecting some massive loophole when in reality it was never going to be that) and for some Therapy Kaladin and him struggling with it, low magic defense of Azir and the spiritual realm just didn’t hit the extremely high bar that a lot of people had. I could very well be wrong. I know for me I’ve been busy enough with RL crap that the cosmere wasn’t in the forefront of my mind and I only just remembered WaT was coming out a few days before release and it is my favorite book in the series after reading it and going about halfway through the audiobook now. I had expectations yes, but I hadn’t been thinking about that and raising the bar for myself, I just expected a good Sanderson ride that had big cosmere implications and it went beyond what I’d expected. I’m just speculating since I don’t understand the negative reactions either, not trying to discount anyone’s opinions on the book because everyone’s opinion is valid.
@@dreamshakejunya was thinking the same thing. Evgeni (who I totally respect) basically said he wasn’t that high on Odium’s hero because he really thought it should have been Gavilar. So that storyline wasn’t “bad” it just wasn’t what he wanted. Again, not picking on Evgeni, he’s just the clearest example I could think of for this.
I think this is much more, "I felt the book promised a certain thing, and I am disappointed with the result." For me, it's BAM. I wanted her to be released and be hyped, the book really seems to go that way. Then she just leaves. There were a LOT of people groaning long before this book came out about Gavinor child champion, so I can see why someone really doesn't like that. Same with Chana, or Syladin. I think when you don't like something, one thing you try to do is think, why did this not work, what could have worked instead? For me that's very natural to do with movies, for example. -Eric
Me too!! I thought he arc was one of the most beautiful! Was so surprised by those comments and honestly the types of critics threw me off the episode - I understand everyone’s opinions are totally valid but I think Kaladin’s arc was really well done and the point was that he was trying, not that he was going to do everything right
Yeah the Jackass thing just came out of left field for me. If I remember correctly it was because he was saying he thought Szeth was acting weird and didn't like Szeth, but I feel like everyone forgets Szeth killed 2 members of bridge 4 and was probably one of the most wanted men in Alethkar for killing the king at one time. Of course Kaladin is going to have a negative opinion of him and see him in a negative light, Bridge 4 were the ones he first swore to protect and save and he killed 2 of them and for a time had criplled one of them. I also think that people have forgotten that Kaladin can be quippy, when he was feeling better and Shallan would make quips at him he would give it back, but now that he isn't super depressed and seems to be acting a little more like that people are mad. (I might very well be wrong and just misremembering, I know where was one scene where he and Shallan were taking digs at each other, so I might just be applying that to more than I should)
Totally agree - Kaladin is just one of my favourite characters ever and I enjoyed everything - and that ending was just great. I'm really not mad we're getting more of him in the following books
I thought that the Chana theory came from the Word of Brandon that said we had seen all 10 heralds, and we could easily find the other nine. In searching for Chana, the only one that made a wee bit of sense was Shallan's mother. (Looking. In 2017, Peter confirms that we have seen Chana onscreen by at least one character and at least one time in the first two books.) Once Brandon took what he called a precocious (I think) sip of water as soon as he was overtly asked the Chana question in the spoiler Q&A, and both the bluntness of the question and Brandon's reaction may have been the best part of the whole Q&A, we knew Chana-Mama was going down. But even better than that, at the Worldhopper Ball, Chana-Mama showed up and got chased around by Wit telling her that Shallan was not yet ready to face seeing her and coping with all of that yet. He laid it on thick! Of course, y'all may have read the books before the Worldhopper Ball and Spoiler Q & A.
Plus, we know from book 1 IIRC(might be book 2) that Shallon's mom definitely agrees with the Skybreakers' radiant murders. From there, it's literally just connecting her to Nale and Ishar & that's more than enough info to make herald theory.
@@trolledchaos6531 And when we got a WoB that Taln did not break the Oathpact, we knew that some other herald had died and broken the pact. All of that was before the prologue. The theory was somewhat iffy before that time, but the prologue really drove home the timeline of Chana-Mama's death.
I would also add the element of Taln returning just before the Everstorm made him holding out irrelevant. That's really odd timing that makes a lot more sense if a herald died. Shallan's mom also acts pretty strangely. We also get Shallan bonding pattern who is certain that she will kill him, and the cryptics will send another. Which after Testament is kind of crazy they'd send a third unless there's some reason for them to be so fixated on her. The red hair I think really just narrowed it down for which herald. But there was a lot there pointing to a mystery we didn't know yet with Shallan's past specifically with her mother, and her being a herald fit very well. I think this was a great well set up reveal from Sanderson not just something from the red hair, or even just from the WoBs though they played a role.
It was a really solid well reasoned theory. It was based on much more than just her hair color as Alyx said. The foreshadowing was brilliant. Not so telegraphed that it was obvious, all the hints were there for the astute reader, and in hindsight it seems obvious.
Thoughts from Dragonsteel Nexus: 1. The only time I felt star struck was at y’all’s booth. 2. Eric is exactly as I imagined. Such a Labrador retriever of a gentleman. 3. Ian is way taller than I thought. 4. David’s beard is a good look. 5. All of you guys seemed so genuine and kind. Thank you for representing our fandom so well.
I'm excited to get past the reaction casts and into the more specific deep dives into individual topics. While I disagree with a lot of the negative opinions I do understand how people could have them and think they're perfectly valid. It has been pretty disappointing though and kind of killed the vibe to go from the high I felt while reading the book to seeing how much a lot of you guys disliked it. Mainly because I don't have any IRL friends to talk about the Cosmere with, so these videos and limited discord interactions are the only times I get to experience these books with other people. Once we get into the deep dives though I'm sure a lot of that sentiment will go away and we can all collectively nerd out again.
Next week is Contest of Champions / Retribution, and so you'll feel much better at home. Obviously, the intent isn't to harsh your vibes, totally get that. -Eric
@@17thShard No harm done at all. I understand the point of these reactions is to share your opinions and I wouldn't want you to be inauthentic about it because of the potential reactions that I and other people might have. Even though I disagree it is good to see different perspectives about the book and how other people experienced it. It was just a mismatch of what I expected from these casts and what I got. Ironically similar to how a lot of y'all felt about the book. lol
I think the first 30 chapters really affected people's opinion on it. I know I wasn't alone with thinking the preview chapters felt.. different. But it was also the last time we're seeing the characters together for a long time. Plus we read them over the course of a couple months so we focused on them more than normal. There's definitely fair criticisms, but I think it's a much better book than RoW. The prose felt a little flat compared to normal and very matter of fact. Flowery prose never been something Brandon focuses on but to me it seemed like there was more telling and not showing at times.
@@beeman4266 I specifically avoided the preview chapters as I wanted to read the book all at once, so I can't really relate to that sentiment. Interesting to hear that though.
Imo Szeth taking a stand for not fighting Nale and asking for help was really massive growth from him instead of just being an excuse for kaladin to fight like I've seen some people argue for actually reminded me of a certain One Piece scene that is one of my favorite scenes in media to date and I loved to see him trust someone else
I WEPT over that moment with Nami, and god I wish I could say the same for this, but... the emotion just really wasn't there in the same way. A completely different reaction, unfortunately.
While I didn’t fully agree with everything, listening to you all share your opinions - which were, by and large well-founded and supported - was refreshing. I think it’s important to have this space to disagree about things, and to express both our positive feelings and our negative feelings. Because at the end of the day - this is art, so we won’t always agree. And that’s a good thing! While it will probably be at least a year until I read the book again, the things I heard will definitely be things I think about next time through (not only as I read this book, but the entire series). Thank you all for this wonderful episode. And don’t let the haters get you down.
That’s what I’ve felt the ultimate Cosmere ending will be framed around…The Shards returning to “the One” after their journeys of self-improvement to reforge Adonalsium v.?
I think the big climactic scenes, other than the renunciation, could have used a little more emotion and build up so they punched harder but other than that I liked the book. Definitely could have used more Vasher. The Nightblood character progression is soooo exciting.
I was just losing my mind thinking of all the conversations Nightblood must be having with all the Honorblades. That must have been quite an experience for it given all the things the Honorblades must have seen.
@@17thShard if length was no issue, I think I would be very happy if we got 3 interludes after every part. With the extra interludes all just being conversations and reactions we didn't see during the day. Maybe them going to bed every night... Nightblood was not asleep.
2:50:12 well I would argue this is showing he is bad at therapy that isn’t exactly the same as his specific situation… as he is the first therapist. Makes sense to me
Id be interested on your takes of the 4th moon, in the part 1 they seem to think its just the well of control but my view was tfellit fell before the shards and honour didnt know what it was its described as a strange metel i was thinking some valuable metal thats going to be needed ie. Silver or some sort of ado god metal before the shattering?
We will definitely have an episode on fourth moon! Just to clarify, I don't believe we said the moon chunks were the Well of Control. They are certainly shielding it and making it hard to detect. I believe we speculated as to what that metal is, but that's not the same the Well of Control. -Eric
@17thShard yes sorry I knew you didn't think the moon chunks was the pool I just meant they wasn't much talk about it and I thought they would be I understand these things will need full episodes I'm looking forward to you argent and David talk about the more magic and cosmere building as a whole keep up the good breakdowns I love hearing your theory's on the channel
I think it doesn't get negative until about two hours, the Dalinar/Navani stuff, but yeah up through the True Desolation timestamp you should be good. -Eric
unfortunately me too - appreciate everyone sharing their opinions but reacts 1 had me feeling a bit down because Ioved the book - have found out that maybe reactions episodes aren’t for me!
Oh, yeah, if Reacts 1 was too much, I wouldn't watch the second half of this one, for sure. I am truly glad you loved the book though! I love it too. I'm at a good point (since my first read was a long time ago) where I can enjoy and meme with the rants and find it funny most times. -Eric
I loved the analysis in this episode. Looking forward to all the topic episodes where you all can deep dive into specific topics as everyone clearly has much more to say.
In a weird way I think that the book would have been better if it was a bit longer and the plot that we got in RoW was wrapped up more quickly (3 parts). It could have easily happened as we really didn’t do much in RoW. Some number of Venli flashbacks, Shallan traveling, kaladin defending, and navani sciencing could have been cut. They were all repetitive by the end of the novel. We could have started the countdown with the last two parts, ended with like a cool confrontation between odium and cultivation or something climactic that really set the tone for the upcoming end of the countdown. End of the book could have been hoid finding out what Tarovangian did or something. The reason I say this is because it would have made RoW feel less repetitive and given Brandon more space to really nail plot lines that were almost very very good. I think that all of them were pretty close to feeling excellent, but ultimately felt a bit rushed. Kal and Szeth could have done a couple more things in shinovar. There would have been more room for development in the Moash V Sigzil battle which could have been awesome. More time for the spiritual realm to be explored from the dalinar and shallan side. More time for ba ado mishram to actually do something once free. More time for the battle of champions. Better Jasnah chapters. Ultimately the macro story line was very good and Retribution was a great end to the first Arc. I don’t even dislike where a lot of the characters micro situations ended up, some of the ways that we got there just needed a little more polish imo.
"Shallan isn't close to either of these men" he is her brother in law, what? She isn't allowed to be invested in the love life of the brother of her fiance/husbad of two years? Because you are all closer to Renarin than she is, apparently? Perhaps characters sometimes interact off page and just because family members don't have many scenes together doesn't mean they don't speak to eachother. She can instantly pick him out in the spiritual realm from his tics, they've clearly spent a lot of time together.
I understand passionate people having reacting passionately, epically with a project they had a lot of emotional energy and expectations for, but overall, I loved this book. It’s a masterpiece. There are parts that that I may have issue with, but this is an avengers endgame level book
I have a feeling that somewhere around book 7/8, a lot of folks who were negative on book 5 are going to do a reread and be like “oh crap, that book was freaking awesome”.
Not too sure as it depends on what one dislikes and however it’s conveyed in the text. For me, I tend to drift in a more critical (not necessarily negative) direction.
My issue with this book is that Shallan´s issues was not solved in book 4. I felt the Shallan stuff were repetitive. There were also too many view points to go through in the final book. I loved the hero og ages revelations because there were not too many view points, but stormlight has too many. Some of it should have been solved in previous books. This book felt like a slog to me. I still liked the book. I give it 6/110.
3:05:18 i think Kaladin's character felt like it had a lot of "hand of the author" in it. Kaladin considering that Szeth should perhaps unalive himself felt like Brandon was pointedly adressing the audience who felt that way, or an audience who wasn't as empathetic to Szeth because of his crimes etc. It's also why i think he switched POV to Kaladin when Szeth is weeping with his plushie. He wanted the reader to connect with Szeth but he felt he couldn't do it and therfore used Kaladin/Tien as a crutch to do it. I feel like that's the reason why Kaladin's arc or his character feels a little off and out of place at times.
So, on the "at least there was no Unmade" comment in the Chana section...Brandon has said there was an Unmade influencing the Davar household. Was this just misdirection, or is there still yet another secret in Shallan's past? Maybe plays into the whole 'why would Chana pick Lin?' question? Hm. It was a bit weird when the Worldhopper Ball made this reveal though. The dialog apparently became more explicit at later sessions; At ours on the last day, Chana was going on about how she had to see her, and Wit explicitly says she has to go back to Braize.
I want Syl to fight in the back half. I like the idea that the fifth Ideal gives the radiant a partner to fight beside. Weapon, armor, then partner. I only don't know how it works with Kaladin having a weapon. Will he have an honorspear like we saw manifest in the oathpact creation?
Oh I'm also totally expecting Kaladin's entrance in Book 6 or whatever to be very similar to him saving Cenn in his first few chapters. "And suddenly he was there. Stormblessed."
I really want Brandon to write a whole lot of short stories set during the 10 year time skip on Roshar, and release it as a collection at the beginning of the year of whenever he decides to release Stormlight 6 to prepare as for diving back into a changed Roshar
OK, which alternative do you like? 1)No Elantris sequels 2)Add a year to the gap before Stormlight 6 3)No Rock novella and also add 6 months to the gap Pick at least one.
@carl11547 well a rock novella can be part of the collection. Short stories are probably easier to write for Brandon, it's the editing that takes time, so add a year to the next Stormlight release and give us more Roshar stories, pre and during the time skip.
Did anyone else cringe really hard when Kaladin reused the badass line in book 2? I seriously don't understand why Brandon wanted to reuse that line; a lot of the other callbacks were very tasteful and cute, but this felt gross. Kaladin basically looks right at the camera and talksnto the audience, it's so jarring. I don't think that line would've struck him as memorable to himself as it is to us, and he certainly wouldn't blurt it out. It was so awkward, and really taints that awesome scene in book 2 for me
Mark my words that a "mature" honor/odium shard could be shifted to an intent of Redemption. The concept is even signaled within several parts of the book, and if Taravangian is defeated, I think it is very possible someone could pick up the shards to mark that shift.
Justice seems more likely.the character arc of Honor and it's lack of understanding of what is right and empathy, obedience etc feel very much in line with Szeth's character arc and the notion of what the law means for the common man.
@Haxerous justice seems just as Vague a concept as honor if you ask me and I believe if justice is what it turns into it would literally be honor 2.0 as there are horrible things that have been done in the name of justice.
While I completely disagree about the Szeth and Kaladin opinions, I do agree about Nale. It was honestly weird how hard the Wind had to push to get Kaladin to attempt to see the person who was tortured on humanity's behalf for thousands of years as a person who deserved his help. I think if Brandon pushed deeper into why Kaladin had those feelings it might have worked but it felt very surface level. Like a knee jerk reaction which I needed more context for, especially given he knows the Heralds are all insane. I think the saddest part of these reactions for me isn't that their negative but about how a lot of these problems don't seem fixable. Like there's nothing Brandon can do to undo a lot of the damage this book did to the series for many of you guys. Part 2 of Stormlight will have this as its foundation.
Yeah I think it also would've been easy to add that Kaladin had heard about how many radiants had been killed by Nale. That would've been entirely reasonable. Their spren survived and likely bonded other radiants Kaladin would know. I think Kaladin's feelings about Nale would've worked better if that had been the foundation that he'd heard about dozens of spren who found bonds with radiants who were then murdered by Nale. And Kaladin had to deal with putting that feeling aside to look at Nale as someone with this mental issue to address and feel sympathy for him.
@@tadious9415 Syl literally spent 2 books trashing Nale and all the skybreakers in general to Kaladin, and they were trying to kill Tien too. So, it's not hard to imagine that Kaladin would have to be pushed to empathize with Nale or any Skybreaker. Just remember how hard was for Kaladin to understand Adolin who literally never did anything wrong in front of Kaladin.
@@DarkChaos1986 literally spending two books doing that implies it's more than a handful of mentions from Syl. Which is there but at the start of her dislike of Skybreakers she also couldn't even answer his question of what are Skybreakers? I don't think Kaladin ever knows that they were trying to kill Tien. Or if anyone alive actually knows that Tien was a budding radiant in the books. I think for that to be a good justification for it though we should've gotten some mentions from Kaladin of what Nale and the skybreakers had done to show that at least slightly on his mind. The justification works for sure even if it's just Kaladin remembering some windrunners who had died to skybreakers in the war. But we don't get any of that is my point. We don't get that there's any specific source for Kaladin's distrust of Nale it's just present.
Argent’s slight smile the whole time makes me think he made some valuable contributions to this book & he’s glad to see them being talked about Also Shannon is over here contemplating the foreshadowing instead of speeding through it like the smooth brain I am haha Okay I have to disagree with the Kaladin treatment
Most of us did! I am more fond of my friends' and fellow beta's contributions, and proud for them too. I was mostly smiling because I like talking about these books with my friends :)
@@_argent that’s one of the most heartwarming replies in the Cosmere. My golden retriever-axehound approves I think we all see these negativities, but I’m so glad this book is HERE. the only other reliable author I know is Joe Abercrombie And also…thank you all for helping him. We see you as TH-camrs or Podcasters…..but you are the real life Pillars of Mammoth proportions. It may not be your book but it is HIS book. Rather it be written then feared and forgotten
The majority of criticisms in this episode don't quite ring true for me personally---in particular, while I definitely agree that Kaladin took up too much of Szeth's space on a narrative level, I don't think Kaladin botched any of what he was doing in-world as severely as most of the people on this podcast do, and think most of it comes down to presentation issues---but I really admire everyone's ability to feel both very negatively about certain things and still maintain a lot of positive feelings about the book. It's something I struggle with a lot.
Lord I was really looking forward to this but I'm not sitting through 3 more hours of this group hating and nitpicking this book. I think I need to take a break from this channel
I think the topics will be much more up your alley. Reactions are where we can be more critiquey. That was how TLM and RoW went. Also at least so far in the premiere, they haven't gotten negative yet :P I am glad you liked the book, of course! Lots have, lots have also really hated it it seems. -Eric
People hated lost metal and loved bands of mourning. I liked lost metal and rank bands of mourning as my least favorite cosmere book. So, we might not all like the same books.
So negative. I get the feeling they all had a way they wanted the book to go and were disappointed it didn't go that way. Personally I thought it was peak Sanderson. I got the same vibes from it I did all the other books only everything was scaled up. It's unfortunate because this is like the main cosmere channel on yt and the general negativity doesn't seem representative of the greater fandom.
A lot of this is "knee-jerk reactions", hard to keep personal expectations out of it. This book isn't without issues, some of which are decently conveyed in this video. It would seriously help to have more structure to this type of discussion, where the group can agree on a set of notes and have references. I thought Brandon did an admirable job with this sprawling story that was constrained to 10 days. I don't know if any other author could handle such a gargantuan task as well. Some great character moments, even though parts of it felt a bit heavy handed in getting the pieces in the right place for book 6/cosmere. The plotlines were overall tight and trending together, which is something he does very well. Also introduced a lot of big ideas that we can all chew on before book 6
I think this inherently is a problem with big series. Everyone is built up slowly with different expectations. Yes, critiques can be a personal issue, but I think if you check out Reacts 1 comments, there are plenty of positive comments but plenty of way more negative comments than this. And the things that are good or bad vary wildly! I think this will continue as the series progresses, too. -Eric
Also, I'm not sure it isn't reflective. From what I've seen it's pretty mixed. But don't worry, it'll be different when get into more topic episodes which are more analysis. -Eric
@@mark-roes Yeah nothing is perfect and there are definitely parts I didn't like so much. I guess I expected people with a channel dedicated to talking about the cosmere to at least balance the good with the bad. It seemed very negative. It's strange because it's not like the book bombed or changed in a big way from the other books. Like on Amazon and Goodreads it's rated very highly. I feel like the general style, themes, characters were very much in line with previous books.
@@17thShardYeah I watched the first one. It seemed more positive to me. Surely you guys can find someone who likes the book to balance things out so it feels more like a discussion than a bashing.
I think the back 5 books are set up very well. I really hope Brandon can tone down the mental health and/or internal struggle every character is constantly dealing with. Let's see some more external struggles, like giant monsters trying to kill good guys!
I feel like a lot of people going into the debate had a much grander version of Jasnah in their head than what was ever actually in the book. Yeah when we first meet her people say that she's a great philospher, but everything she ever actually said or did came down to "I'm going to do what serves my interests best" and the only reason it even vaguely resembled utilitarianism is because she's not a totally selfish person so her personal interests tended to align with helping people. Everything Taravangian said was 100% right about her, she has spent four books claiming to be something that she isn't and now it bit her in the ass.
Hah, it certainly is driving a lot of engagement! (Though the intent is not to be rage-bait. These are all honest opinions.) Thanks for watching! -Eric
I feel like the things I hate about this novel are mostly things I’ve hated about every Sanderson novel and it’s weird that it suddenly bothers us now.
These episodes have been great. All the criticisms have been fair and I feel like everyone on cast has a great sense of narrative, plot, and theme. The more time I think about WaT, the more I’m ultimately happy with its destination but upset with its journey, which is one of the most frustrating things to say about a series where journey comes before destination lol
Many have said this before me, but yes this book was absolutely destination before journey unfortunately. Thankfully, that destination does indeed set up the back 5 very well.
@@greywatch9365 thanks so much for your feedback on this episode. It really helped me think about Kaladin/Szeth interactions from a new perspective. I’m currently in therapy myself and found the flute scene equally dissatisfying, me having experience with what my own journey of therapy has looked like and how little that matched what was portrayed in the scene for Nale. I maybe of a different opinion than a lot of people with this, but I really wish Sanderson hadn’t gone with a ten day setup for this book. At the very least the Szeth/Kaladin plot line would have worked better if it had happened outside of the ten days and as its own book or novella. It really felt like a different book than the rest of the story with the payoff only explaining how the spren still exist on Roshar. Usually I can’t tell that Sanderson writes Stormlight books as three books, each all the way through, before weaving them together. This one it was very obvious the divisions, partially because of the settings but also because the themes in each of the three books felt very different. Szeth’s arc was about giving up entirely the fight for an ideal that you believe in, while Adolin’s arc was about fighting for the promises that you’ve made to those around you, not because they are oaths, but because you value the people you made those promises to, and it’s the smart/right thing to do. Meanwhile, Dalinar’s arc was about learning to break oaths for the greater good of everyone. Oddly, I felt like Dalinar was the most utilitarian character in the end, even more than Odium or Jasnah. I think these three ideas had a lot of potential and can overlap in some ways but Szeth’s story stands out as really anti-climatic. His moving away from fighting only reinforces other characters whereas when Dalinar does it, it causes real consequences for Odium. I’ll wager Sanderson thought Szeth needed to stop fighting because he really wanted to emphasize a freedom of choice that Szeth possesses. That’s hard, however, to sell in a book where most every other character gets an epic moment of saying their ideal, fighting in insane and powerfully moving ways, and beating the villain. I think Sanderson was trying to be more nuanced with Szeth to show that at times people really are conscripted into a life that they never really wanted to live, become really good at that life, and then feel they must always live out that life in every situation, or else they aren’t valued. I think it’s a bold move to have Szeth stand aside and not fight in the end, but there was no cathartic moment of valuing Szeth’s choice, no weight to that choice, no peace attributed to him that could have told the reader, “hey, the hero isn’t kaladin in this moment” it’s Szeth for stepping back and choosing a path that he started out not believing was a possibility. I also think with added pages in a novella about Szeth and Kaladin in Shinovar, Sanderson could have lessened book five’s length, given more pages for the therapy and Szeth’s story arc, and probably gotten a lot more focused sensitivity readings for that section if it had been completely separate. I know Kaladin has always been Sanderson’s through line for Stormlight and this was Szeth’s book, but for the book Sanderson wrote, this was Adolin’s book, not Szeth’s. And if he had wanted to change and make this Adolin’s book, give him flashbacks and all that, I think it would have really worked better than this one. Even Wheel of Time has a book without one of its main characters. It’s okay to do that in an epic fantasy series. I did find Kaladin’s Tien/Szeth connection moving rather than off-putting on my read but I really want to go back and re-read the book now that I’ve heard your criticisms and see if I feel similarly to you. Either way, thanks for your thoughtful comments on this book! Happy to live parasocially with others through ya’lls comments and conversations
@Diredirectv Lots of very thoughtful response here. I definitely agree that the ten day structure hurt the story of these two in particular, I'm nodding throughout a LOT here. Really great thoughts, thank you for watching and for commenting.
I love the story for this book. All my frustrations come from execution and it isn’t even the author’s fault. This book has taught me the importance of a good editor. If the story was presented differently it could have been as good as Words of Radiance.
I see a lot placed on the editor, but I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. There’s a lot of factors from time crunch to business pushes to authorial pushes to cost-benefit analysis that I think had a bigger effect here.
I'm really curious - Brandon said that Taravangian picking up Odium was only one option on his outline, and he had other plans. But if Rayse was opposed to picking up another shard, how were we going to get Retribution at the end of book 5 without Taravodium?
Depends if Retribution was always the end goal. Brandon could just change Rayse earlier on to be open, but hesitant (as we don’t know much about Rayse, in general).
Grey (I think?) had a theory where Dalinar would ascend to Honor then lose the contest, if something like that happened, it's very possible Rayse could've been forced to become Retribution. Also, I believe he said Taravangian ascending at that point was only one option, and that he was always going to ascend eventually
Maybe the kaladin hate is a tone miscommunication In the audiobook Micheal Kramer is voicing kaladin with a lot of doubt and thought behind his therapeutic thinking I can see if you read his tone as more malicious or aggro it might flavour the whole storyline differently
Perhaps. Acting does apply a layer that text cannot. I do think Kal (who I had less issues with than others) does still come across as annoying almost to his and Szeth’s detriment. There’s a splash of unintentional Dalinar in Kal this book.
A lot of the issues with Kaladin being a therapist and flutist seem like everyone is thinking he's being portrayed as an expert at either. Kaladin is trying new things and fumbling through them. He's a novice making obvious (to modern audiences) mistakes in therapy and reached a point of "I can recognize what song you're playing" on the flute. He's not a therapist, he's an aspiring therapist. He's trying to figure out what that means, how it works, and reconciling that with the rest of his life while he figures out who he is. He knows that's what was happening with his PTSD support group and not much else. Maybe he got some basic therapy info from Wit off-screen, but even then he's basically a first-month undergrad learning how to do something nobody on his planet does. He handles it poorly and struggles to connect with people who have been adversaries and that's totally expected.
If the point is how inexperienced and fumbling he is, then maybe the book could have had him actually not fully center on them during some of Szeth's emotional moments and have him win on these points anyway... At some point, "Kaladin is new at this" doesn't cover quite that much ground of the issues I had.
@greywatch9365 I agree he shouldn't have been taking all the space in Szeth's story. Szeth basically learned to have free will and immediately abdicated his role in the story. Cheapens it a lot. My comment was more focused on the bad therapy aspect and changes to Kaladin's character. Not great but I can accept it and see some reasoning for it.
@@TacticalFluke92 Yeah, that's all fine, totally. But the way the word therapist is used in the book, the outright start to finish win that Kaladin gets on this.... it doesn't match any of the comments flooding this episode, the tone of what some folks would have me believe the book is trying to say about Kaladin's skill level does not match what the book is telling me about Kaladin's story. And I'm very sorry to everyone who feels that way, but I can't join you in that, it feels like inventing a little bit of extra justification on the side to make it work better - but it's just not in the book. It's just how I feel. I've been able to sharpen and redirect a little of the Kaladin thoughts I've had in the comments and I'm happy for the opportunity thoughtful responses like yours offer. It's appreciated!
I think that "Why would Chana choose that man, of all possible people, for a husband - and why not sooner or later?" are exactly the correct things to ask.
Not to be mean or insensitive, but I completely understand and sympathize where Kalandin is coming from in not wanting to help/save Nale and Szeth. While it turns out that they can be saved, they did commit countless murders. Szeth basically killed enough nobles in Jah Kaved to trigger a civil war, and Nale kille all of the budding radiants that otherwise might have saved the world, nearly ordering the death of Shallan and directly causing the suffering for Kaladin! Storms, Kaladin would not have been a slave if not for the hit Nale placed on Amaram. In my personal day to day life, there are many people that I would never harm, but sometimes I think the world would be better off without. For Kaladin to think this in the face of his world's equivalent of the head of the SS or NKVD is completely justifiable in my opinion. That said, I understand where most of the 17th Shard is coming from via a more psychological as opposed to sociological/political perspective. Turns out that the average/median person is not a mass murderer
I guess this is a somewhat hot take, but the Jasnah debate scene wasn't all that bad. As some one who isn't well versed in philosophy (besides a surface level understanding), the detail was fine. I think it makes sense that Jasnah wouldn't be well versed in defending her utilitarian views, as most of the time people only want to discuss her religious/ heretical views. There likely hasn't been that much time for self reflection in the time since Oathbringer due to the war, so having the realization only hitting home now that she can't commit to utilitarian views is fine. I'm not saying it couldn't be better, I'm sure there were ways to weave in deeper philosophy without losing some one with my shallow background knowledge, and Fen could have had more agency. I just don't think it's as bad as most on shardcast make it out to be. But to each their own.
I think it depends on how aware of philosophy someone is. I didn’t have much an issue until the end (because the ending note was like the basic 101 counter to utilitarianism which makes it strange that Jasnah had nothing for it). I think it would’ve helped if it were more couched in the negotiations between Odium and Fen.
I think yall brought too much of ur own "baggage" into the kal stuff. You should get back to trying to understand what is being given instaed of looking for how you expect/want a thing to play out
Agreed. I'm not a fan of a directed criticism so it pains me to say that I found Shannon, and by proxy Alyx, really took over this episode and spoilt parts of it. I would've liked to hear Eve, Marvin and Evgeni more
Is it baggage to say, "I'm not a fan of character who attempted suicide days ago to say another character should kill themselves"? Like... Really? I did not mind the scene in question but surely you can see why people could really despise that. And also, I think it's reasonable they wanted more Szeth in the Szeth book, and don't like he was done dirty. Is that seriously bringing in too many preconceived notions into things? -Eric
@@17thShard yea, that read is more based on ur perspectives on those subjects more than the characters. when kal has that thought he is doubting his ability to help, its basically him saying "what do i know?". szeth murdered people and feels immense guilt so he thinks he should not live. in any other context Kal would agree with that. so he basically doesnt feel like he has ground to stand on. because Kal's suicide attempts were essentially him giving up, Szeth's would have been punishment for his crimes by way of seppuku. its not the same as what Moash tried to do in row. on a meta level- it cant just be a Szeth book its a finale and Kal is John Stormlight, but wanting more Szeth is understandable if he is a fav character
Sure, I totally see what you're saying, and I didn't have the issue with the scene personally, but I just want to say, if you DID have issues with the scene, it comes across as: "You know, I really hated when one of my favorite characters punched that dog really hard. Not a fan!" "Well actually, he had really good reasons to punch the dog and it's not that bad..." Not a perfect analogy but I'm trying to illustrate how people can perfectly understandably have a moral issue to a thing, and really not like it. If that's bringing baggage in from outside the book, like... Doesn't literally everyone, in every piece of media? Ever? I just don't think that's a super fair criticism when I'm sure literally all of us bring in our perspectives to everything we consume, all the time, and that always influences the reaction one has. It's not possible to say in so many of those situations, "Well, you don't get it, you should look at the story for what it is" when they DID look at the story, and really had a reaction against some things. I know you know what this feels like when you've consumed other pieces of media. Like, I'm sure in some cases you can, in some cases you can't. It varies. It's a spectrum. That doesn't mean people who had a different reaction are incorrect per se. As Brandon said in his WaT release party speech: a story does not live until the reader reads it. The reader paints the picture. The reader is the director. There is no version of the book without that aspect where you personally are not building this in your mind, where your expectations don't matter. And like, I get it, it's tough to hear critique on a character you love. But as a person who does really like almost everything in the book, I can see what people are saying, and that doesn't make it invalid/incorrect. -Eric
This... misses the possibility that I understood what I was given and disliked it anyway. It's very common in the comments to suggest that if we just "understood" more, we'd have fewer negatives, but this isn't the case. I went into this book excited for Kaladin's arc first and foremost, fearing for Kaladin first and foremost. He lost me on the spot during some moments, not because I was looking for reasons to dislike it, but because something in those scenes genuinely hit in a bad way. I came up alternative ways that might have felt better for me personally WEEKS after the first time I read them, sometimes months. Those weren't ideas I had going /in/ to the book.
I didn’t love everything about WaT and certainly don’t mind hearing critical observations of Sanderson but this episode’s general tone of haterade-marinated smugness is very off-putting. But I do, at least, appreciate them flying that flag early, allowing me to just dip out. So thanks for that.
I thought it was interesting that Dalinar thought that he could "manage the Cosmere War" as Odiums general like he'd have any kind of free will in it. As I understood it, he was to become a Fused, and therefore, Odium would have full control of his soul. Like how in the contest, Odium was able to fully control Gav.
I agree with Argent that Maya's intentions were obvious, at least to me. I actually figured out that she was going to bring back the dead-eyes early on, mostly because why else would Sanderson have spent time having Maya explain them at the start of the book.
And another one... "Shallan was too wierdly controlling about what they should do with Mishram... that was weird" Its 3 people basically deciding if they should do from her PoV the equivalent launching a nuke and she is supposed to not have an opinion or not fight for it, just trusting the decision of the 2 people you were saying 10 minutes ago she barely knows. Her opinion wasn't any stronger than the other two, it just wasn't the opinion you liked.
I mean yeah, I'll own that, I hated the way she did it. I found her a little weirdly controlling with the other two the whole spiritual realm trip, and I'll absolutely own that I didn't like it because I didn't like it. Tautological reasoning works for some things I suppose!
“Szeth has actually not been a character in Kaladin’s interactions before” Szeth didn’t try to kill Kaladin??? Am I misunderstanding this? I like all of these people but man this episode was wild. Opinions shared as facts. I hate how frustrated I feel 😤
I think the 10 day structure didn't leave any room to breathe. There's valid criticism for sure, but this is also the culmination of 4 books and there was a lot to get through. It's tough really, the 10 day structure gives a good excuse for every character to be doing something on a mission but it also hurts the possibilities of the characters. Like in all the previous books, we really didn't know where we were going in the last 20% of the book. But with WaT we knew it was culminating in the battle of champions and all the other plot threads setup at the beginning of the book.
@beeman4266 I think it was done the best that it could have been but we just needed more time to breathe especially with how long the book is. So many characters have such massive changes in such a short time which of course it's a book they're in different realms or dealing with gods and so a lot can change but it would feel a lot more believable and feel a lot more substantial if it happened over even just a bit of a longer period.
2:59:50 Does Ene think Hitler shouldn't have done his most noble deed? These are thoughts that people in the real world have. The book is for ADULT fantasy enjoyers and contain complex and intense topics. I think Brandon handled the sewer slide topic with finesse.
My biggest gripe with the Szeth Kaladin section is actually pretty small but it's just the fact that Szeth accepting death like that is clearly against Life before Death and should have consequences on his bond and his spren should have been vehemently against that.
How many of you are betas, if I may ask? It seems like the early readers had a lot more negative reactions to the book compared to the general populace.
I think Brandon killed it with the moral of questioning absolute, unbending law throughout! Szeth's arc really culminated for me with the "I see no evil, merely confusion" line and how Nightblood is also growing Thank god this isn't ***the perfect book***, that would put every cast member and many viewers out of our dreams of writing something like this one day 😅
2:12:30 Shannon explained the spiritual realm stuff perfectly, that exact feeling damn. My attention didn't know where to go because all the scenes felt relevant and almost none of ghe conversations felt relevant to the scene?
In defense of the SR scenes, I think part of the purpose was to give context to the Herald stuff in the other plot lines. But it does feel mostly “hey, look at this cool worldbuilding stuff that is completely irrelevant to Dalinar”. If Chana can pop up in SR, perhaps there could’ve been a bit of crossover with Ishar and Nale to cross the arcs a little.
@alexayers8904 i actually realised last night that one of the reasons this entry worked so much less for me is that so goddamm much of it feels like a straight forward lore dump
Shallan's brothers definitely are affected either by hereditary Herald madness or an Unmade. I do not think that tbere are so many world-altering things that are connected to Shallan per se. Of the world-altering ones, I think that they are more connected to, or explained by, the identity of her mother. The rest are personal.
I will rest my chin on my hands and ask you, insufferably, what is combative about the way I was on this podcast with my friends that I was having a lot of fun with?
Hi all! I adjusted the timestamps where positivity begins and negativity begins, so you can skip around however you want! -Eric
@@17thShard Hi Eric, I would like to hope people aren't just skipping critique about the book for the sake of it, that would make us sycophants; I get the feeling it's specifically what, and how, certain views were expressed that is driving conversation.
😂 thanks!
Thanks. This was a bit negative for my taste -unfairly negative and smug. Not a fun or enjoyable listen.
“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment."
The Kaladin therapy rants are really weird and entirely miss the mark IMO. No shit a dude who is literally trying - without ANY education on how CBT or trauma works - to help other people is going to primarily rely on his own experience. What was that “OH A TIEN?? EVERYTHING HAS TO BE TIEN?” Rant from Shannon? Yes, in fact, a twenty-something year old kid who is still processing his own trauma is going to filter other people’s experiences through his own life. He’s been trying this for 4 days, obviously he’s not going to be great at it.
Well, I do feel like my point was missed, too, because my point was: this was a Szeth moment that got turned into a Kaladin one. I wanted to experience the emotions and breakthrough Szeth was having much, much more than I wanted to experience Kal whiffing it. Not only was it a whiff of the character, but the fact that one could feasibly kindasorta defend Kal being so bad at this misses the point, because the book didn't need to abruptly pull away from Szeth to go to Kaladin and re-center him. While Szeth is having a breakdown. It's about what the book decided was important. And hey, as long as the book wants me to focus on Kaladin instead of Szeth, maybe Kaladin could have been less infuriating about it.
@ okay I’m just going to quote what you actually said on the pod, so you can understand why people may have missed your point. Because that’s not what you expressed at all.
“Kaladin, Mr connection, Mr I’m gonna meet you where you’re at, Mr oh I’m halfway through this book and I’m supposed to be pretty good at this therapy thing right now, just a total whiff, he can’t understand Seth except through the lens of his own story?? Oh, it’s a tien?? Are you tien?? …He’s supposed to, by this point, Mr almost fifth oath, he’s been through this arc 4 books in a row, and Kaladin can’t understand or sympathize with someone unless it’s either me or tien - WHO ARE YOU?? This is supposed to be what you’re good at right now, IN THIS BOOK!“
Actually it was the "Kaladin therapy" part of the book that missed the mark
@@greywatch9365 and to be clear, I normally love and agree with many of your takes, but I do not think this one came off the way you wanted or intended it to lol.
@@Laloslawyer I mean, yeah, it was a long segment of the episode, and I started off the entire section with talking about valour stolen from Szeth by Kaladin. And now you know! It is correct to say that yes, I disliked that it for the reasons you said, but also... for even MORE reasons than you thought I was saying it. I personally don't find anything that depends on it being okay for it to be bad as satisfying answers. It doesn't make it more satisfying in my eyes, and the emotional core of why I hated it remains untouched.
Idk please correct me if I'm wrong, but my read on the flute scene was that Kaladin had not suddenly become a master, nor was he even playing music the whole time but the Wind was bringing in bits and pieces of Kaladin's various practice sessions that were good/decent to create a cohesive song
Yeah right?
I mean the music continues (due to the wind) while he's speaking with Nale
Yeah that was my read.
Also, the scene read to me not as magically changing Nale's mind but instead forcing Nale to confront his emotions and doubts himself.
Like, it seemed like Nale KNEW that if Kaladin finished the story his conscience and emotions would reassert itself, almost like he kind of wanted that to happen.
Also, Kaladin DID utilize some pretty destabilizing and potent lines during the story; "is it your emotions you can't trust, or your mind?" was really strong! I thought he did a good job!
Szeth killed a member of bridge 4 and paralyzed another and tried to kill Dalinar twice. Kaladin has had interactions with Szeth in past all extremely negative.
Not to mention the countless other people Kal knows Szeth killed in his various other assassinations. In their early interactions on the trip Szeth in so many words accuses Kal of being weak, useless, and a coward. Szeth never apologizes or takes it back by the way. So yeah it is perfectly understandable for Kal, who is notably not a trained psychologist, after spending all of 2 days with this psychopath would question whether he should just give up and let this guy end himself.
Thank you i was losing my mind when they were talking about this... let's also not forget Kal effing killed Szeth in book 2
But he doesn't ever think about that in his internal dialogue? He's all just, oh, this is guy is weird, and also he's hurt other people.
@@Lemerney Kal specifically mentions how Szeth has killed hundreds of people and he is clearly miffed when Szeth says Dalinar sent him away because he is useless or when Szeth says he's a coward. We already know Kaladin's feelings on assasins and Szeth specifically. He has been giving Szeth side eye since the end of OB. People are already complaining there was too much telling rather than showing or there is too much reflecting about feelings in the book. I don't think it would have helped to have Kal specifically enumerate all reasons why Szeth is a deplorable person. We get the general idea from him questioning whether Szeth deserves to die.
@@Lemerney There is an early chapter where Kaladin specifically wonders if he should let Szeth kill himself after the finish the quest. He quickly quashes the idea but it absolutely does cross his mind.
One of my favorite thoughts relating to the idea of Odium being "God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context," is that the same is true of Honor. Honor is equally separated from its context, from the virtues, the Shardic intents, that give it meaning: (Spoilers for the 16th Shard)
Devotion, Mercy, and Reason. The Shard of Honor is literally Honor without Reason.
Yeah I think there's quote from this book - in Tanavast or Hoid's POV - about all the Shards being separated from God's divine love which "went to the best of them - Aona".
If he does an Aona Novella that would be heartbreaking. I also like what he said about Ati. Ati was the best of them all. Nicest?! If you read mistborn era 1 you would have a different perspective of Ati. Leras the most brave…secret history reveals something different. I really want a book about shards and how they affect people who hold them.
the lack of mercy in all of them is the most damning to me I didnt realize there was a mercy shard.
I need to know what the situation with Adonalsium was pre-Shattering so I can definitively say that killing God was a bad idea. Because there's zero universe when having these fragments of divinity rolling around was gonna end well
I was thinking about this, too, with everything we saw with the other shards so far. I was glad to see it discussed in more detail canonically. It'll be interesting to see it affect the plot more, going forward.
Good thing Kaladin is on Ashyn because the Foreverstorm would be awful for his seasonal affective disorder
I think at this point the thing that impressed me most about the book was the pacing. It did not feel nearly as big as it actually was.
On my reread, I thought the pacing was awesome. I have heard people find it exhausting, which fair enough but I loved it. -Eric
@@17thShardI felt like that was an intentional choice. I felt exhausted like Adolin did lol
I agree! On my first read I was frustrated when we had to switch POVs. Especially to less interesting POVs. But didn’t feel the length it was well paced.
Don't get me wrong, it's a big book, but it didn't feel like one of the biggest books I have ever read, if not the biggest.
Yeah, this book felt smaller than Oathbringer IMO. Felt way smaller than any Wheel of Time book too.
shannon was so obnoxious about kaladin. Yes, szeth WAS LIKE TIEN. He was yanked out of his childhood to join the military, JUST LIKE TIEN. He was tien if tien was forced to become a killer, and brainwashed to follow orders and laws without thought. Shannon has such a terrible view of what therapy is, and I can't believe she thinks using a framework someone understands to try and relate to someone else is somehow selfish. Did people think we weren't going to be getting kaladins perspectives on what szeth was going through?
"Was that your brothers?" This is a FINE QUESTION TO ASK! Szeth has been short with kaladin up to this point, and it's not unreasonable to assume he may have had another sibling he hadn't mentioned. Kaladin is trying to figure out why the stoic assassin is suddenly breaking down crying at a toy. Kaladin has a similar token of his brothers in the carved horse. So Kaladin was wrong about what the toy was, but not in his assumption that it could've been a reminder of different times to szeth.
Literally everyone uses a framework of their own life to try and understand others, and yes, szeth is sufficiently different and closed off that kaladin finding it difficult to relate to is to me, totally normal, and anyone thinking it's weird to have trouble relating to someone who is being very closed off is themselves closeminded in assuming everyone should infinitely be able to understand everyone and everything.
FR. She was hating because she didn't get what she wanted.
I mean, I would have loved to get at least Szeth's on what what Szeth was going through. :)
Also, Kaladin has already heard Szeth describe his family. He knows Szeth has a big sister and not a little brother. This is information he does have already. It was a deeply myopic moment where Kaladin did put his life overwriting Szeth's to understand him, and in the moment where I nearly had a strong emotion from this book with Szeth and the sheep plushie, being forced out of the moment by a silly unthoughtful question did give me a bad emotional reaction. It doesn't have to be yours, but yes, actually, my emotional reaction to the scene does make sense.
Now it doesn't have to be your emotional reaction, but I'm not obnoxious for having it. Be well.
@@greywatch9365 the way you described and ranted is what made it obnoxious, not the take itself.
@@romegypt5675 oh, okay, well then that seems inappropriately personal.
I think part of it is that Kal comes across centering himself a bit too much (which is subjective).
Szeth is similar to Tien, but not the same. Kal spends a lot of time thinking Szeth is like him, then like Tien without really considering a third option (or partitioning aspects of Szeth’s story into other characters he’s helped, known, etc).
IMO, didn’t bother me, but Kal did some across very annoying and unhelpful for much of the arc with some good moments (like the stew).
4:14:50 - the fact that Karbranth was spared was definitely meant to undermine Taravangian. He is so obsessed with doing what is right despite the difficulty, and fails in this regard. He is ultimately proven a hypocrite (as we all are, but at least we admit it).
He admitted it too.
I can’t fathom all these negative feelings. I was just so thrilled to be on the ride.
I agree fully. It was an incredible experience
I'm extremely glad! -Eric
Sometimes being too close to something can be a bad thing in terms of enjoyment. If you notice, most of the discontent is about a preferred outcome not being selected by the author, rather than just experiencing the content. "Brandon should have..."
@@thecomb3z786 or even… an outcome running in the fandom that they didn’t prefer lol
Yeah I was gonna say... its so wierd to have a collection of superfans who are all in lockstep agreement that they hate all/most of the main characters.
I personally felt like this was Sanderson’s best book I’ve read to date! I’ve heard some negative reviews but I really loved it overall
I feel the exact same way.
I am so glad you loved the book! I want to firmly empower you and say that that's awesome, and totally valid. -Eric
@ absolutely. These books wouldn’t be as amazing if everyone just agreed on everything. The discussion and back and forth IS the journey. Thanks to all you and the team do on that front. Thanks that we have BS to provide the destination.
Lol yeah agreed. & it’s def not “one of the worst Cosmere stories ever”. I couldn’t continue after I heard that one. Insane stuff 😂
@@AGrassy29people with a straight face say this worse than something like Elantris 😭
I will say Ishar just saying to Kaladin's face "I've heard Hoid's songs and stories before, they're not going to work. Sit down." was rather cathartic
Yeah, it was pretty funny.
That and Nale destroying Kaladin in battle. This book put some respect on the Heralds’ names.
My only regret is we won’t get evgeni vs Ian
Hah, yeah, scheduling and splitting people was challenging for these. -Eric
I’m so curious what it was like to give this feedback months ago and see nothing change
Is it just me, or does Evgeni look like he has really been taking good care of himself?
It's funny what a trim, a haircut, and dropping 30 pounds will do to a guy 😅
@_argent Also any big fan of the Argent-led episodes, you generally do a better job of directing the group constructively 😅
@@danielmorgan6793 thanks, but I had very little to do in this episode!
@@_argent Of course you were a great host! You put a lot of thought into how to structure this episode and were great at that sense of how to lead a discussion and when to move things on and suggest alternative explanations!
I think in some of the Szeth Kaladin area people were somewhat off point in Kaladin "stealing the spotlight" from Szeth. First of all, as others have said, Kaladin isn't some kind of mental health expert. He is working with essentially no data, and has been working on this project for a month. Kaladin was never really trying to be a good therapist, despite therapy words being forced into his mouth by the author. Kaladin came through for Szeth as a hero by standing strong when Szeth felt weak and uncertain and then allowing (and telling) Szeth to make the tough choices he had been unable to make up to that point. He took up the authority in moments where Szeth REQUIRED an authority and then handed the choices back to Szeth, saying he wouldn't choose for him. Kaladin didn't even really like Szeth at the beginning of this situation. He was forced to work with him due to his mission, due to being a soldier, and by the end he was standing by Szeth to fulfill his oath to protect. A large point of Szeth's character is that he DOES NOT WANT THE SPOTLIGHT but is forced to do some of the most negative and public acts in the story. Not everyone has to be turned into a turbo confident and self motivated individual in a 10 day span. Kaladin is laying the ground work by being a good friend and standing up when Szeth needs help.
100% agree
yeah I felt that him taking a stand for not fighting Nale and asking for help was really massive growth from him instead of just being an excuse for kaladin to fight like I've seen some people argue for
Kaladins ending had me low-key sobbing in my bedroom at 4am.
Also I'm really not mad we're probably getting more Kal content in books 6 - 10. He's just one of my favourite characters of all time.
Wooooo this one is even longer than Reacts 1! Also, this one, to my understanding, is more negative than Reacts 1. Just so you knoooow~ -Eric
Kind of sad that the reactions have been on the more negative side. I'm really hoping that the community doesn't lose sight of their love for the series because of some flaws they perceive in the books, I feel like this is what happened with The Wheel of Time community and a lot of conversations about the books are about the minor things people don't like nowadays. Not to say that y'alls negativity and criticism isn't valid I just hope it doesn't overshadow how much we all love the series.
I've said this in a few comments, but I think the thing to remember is: the vast majority of episodes we don't really put on our Critique Hat. If we are analyzing stuff that just usually isn't what we do (sometimes there is stuff to complain about, of course). Whereas Reactions episodes we do get to say our opinions effectively.
I'll just say, if any cast members truly dislike things overall, I doubt they would have motivation to come on the show. This venture is paying for no one's rent. There's no financial incentive to be on huge episodes if people hated the stuff :)
I think in this case, a lot of us feel the ideas on Wind and Truth were good, but could have been executed better. And if people reading this loved the book, awesome! I'm glad! I did too! I'll just say reactions on Discord and the forum is much more mixed. I think our episodes reflect that. -Eric
@@17thShard yeah that's fair, sorry if it came off as me saying you guys shouldn't be critical. Obviously the most important thing is getting your actual opinions out there.
No it's all good :) I expect topic episodes will have our usual tone.
(Until we do a Jasnah episode)
@@17thShardThank you guys for voicing your genuine feelings in reacts! It’s obvious to me that everyone in this community loves the cosmere but the criticism makes it feel like a real discussion from the heart.
Reacts would feel so bleh if it was just non-stop gushing
The danger with getting to super-fan status and also having to wait years between books... you form your own head-canon and theories, and when the author deviates from those, it's disappointing. With the pre-conceptions the cast here seem to have, I understand the gripes. I just don't share most of those preconceptions and think much of it was less Brandon "missing the mark" and more that "the mark" was not Brandon's mark. That said, I do agree with quite a few of the opinions that Brandon could've done better for some things in this book. It certainly needed another round of revisions / editing for language and tone - I've never had Brandon's writing throw me out of a book before. It did here.
Yeah, it's definitely a mismatch of expectations. But I think this is pretty natural for a big series, too. This book, like RoW, has been divisive, and the reasons why people like or dislike are all over the place. -Eric
Agreed, I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with forming your own theories etc, just that it’s why reality can end up disappointing - the more you’ve thrown into a theory the more the risk.
I do hope Brandon actually listens to this episode though, because I think he’d learn quite a bit from it. Personally, I think he could do with slowing down a little bit and examining how past books have been understood vs how he’d intended them.
Spot on. Well said 🔥
@@mattwilcoxuk I... don't know that I came into this with any theories, honestly! Everything presented as an alternative came after the fact while trying to figure out, internally, the vibes after "huh, man, why didn't that work for me?" and throwing stuff at the wall as a suggestion for my personal feelings only. If I can say anything about the notions I came into the book with, I actually didn't think I was going to care about Szeth this much. I thought the Kaladin and Szeth story balance was going to be even more balanced in Kaladin's favour than it turned out to be, so what happened was a very pleasant surprise in how well Brandon wrote Szeth! It's just... the /sauce/ on Szeth transformed me so much WHILE reading this book that the reaction I had was completely new and unexpected, only in the time of reading WaT.
Fair. People react how they react and take different things from the same material. I’ll be re-reading keeping this episode in mind.
Personally I quite *like* (some of) the things that were complaints in the later half. I don’t want a book that’s “only write a thing if it’s directly relevant to some other part of the story” because that makes worlds small. I feel that making every part of every scene “relevant” would be more of a “for the fans” choice than anything else could be. I like having no idea why or how Taln tried to off Cultivation. I like the fact that being dropped in media res requires lacking context, and not knowing details to the general gist. I do think the journey of those visions was needed. Etc. Wrapping up a series still needs to be a story, as much as Way of Kings was - and that was nothing *but* mystery and scene vibes - it’s why we liked it.
Szeth and Kaladin points… yeah I agree with a few of those criticisms for sure.
Hoid was super cool in this book. Idk how Chana attended the Spiritual Realm wedding for realsies, but the fact that Hoid cannot be replicated by visions which are made of pure and bountiful (maybe unlimited) Investiture is really eye-opening. The guy went from an immortal to a god, in my eyes. We cannot sleep on how wild and somewhat terrifying that information should be to us.
I'm not really understanding all the negativity - maybe when I do a Stormlight re-read I'll get it.
I'm really glad you loved the book though. It's perfectly fine for you to feel differently! -Eric
I think a lot of negativity is from how much everyone built up the book in their minds before release. I listened to a video talking about ‘are expectations just too high for SA5?’ After hearing the mixed to negative reactions and I think that’s a lot of why people are disappointed. We have had years building up these 10 days in our minds (like with the contract for example, expecting some massive loophole when in reality it was never going to be that) and for some Therapy Kaladin and him struggling with it, low magic defense of Azir and the spiritual realm just didn’t hit the extremely high bar that a lot of people had. I could very well be wrong. I know for me I’ve been busy enough with RL crap that the cosmere wasn’t in the forefront of my mind and I only just remembered WaT was coming out a few days before release and it is my favorite book in the series after reading it and going about halfway through the audiobook now. I had expectations yes, but I hadn’t been thinking about that and raising the bar for myself, I just expected a good Sanderson ride that had big cosmere implications and it went beyond what I’d expected.
I’m just speculating since I don’t understand the negative reactions either, not trying to discount anyone’s opinions on the book because everyone’s opinion is valid.
@@donovanporter7803 it’s seems to me that most people just preferred the head canon they internally built up to what happened in the book
@@dreamshakejunya was thinking the same thing. Evgeni (who I totally respect) basically said he wasn’t that high on Odium’s hero because he really thought it should have been Gavilar. So that storyline wasn’t “bad” it just wasn’t what he wanted. Again, not picking on Evgeni, he’s just the clearest example I could think of for this.
I think this is much more, "I felt the book promised a certain thing, and I am disappointed with the result." For me, it's BAM. I wanted her to be released and be hyped, the book really seems to go that way. Then she just leaves.
There were a LOT of people groaning long before this book came out about Gavinor child champion, so I can see why someone really doesn't like that. Same with Chana, or Syladin.
I think when you don't like something, one thing you try to do is think, why did this not work, what could have worked instead? For me that's very natural to do with movies, for example. -Eric
Lmao i loved the Kaladin arc in this book. I dont think he was ever a jackass?
Yeah I didn’t get the jackass comment at all. Loved all the Kaladin scenes so much.
Me too!! I thought he arc was one of the most beautiful! Was so surprised by those comments and honestly the types of critics threw me off the episode - I understand everyone’s opinions are totally valid but I think Kaladin’s arc was really well done and the point was that he was trying, not that he was going to do everything right
Yeah the Jackass thing just came out of left field for me. If I remember correctly it was because he was saying he thought Szeth was acting weird and didn't like Szeth, but I feel like everyone forgets Szeth killed 2 members of bridge 4 and was probably one of the most wanted men in Alethkar for killing the king at one time. Of course Kaladin is going to have a negative opinion of him and see him in a negative light, Bridge 4 were the ones he first swore to protect and save and he killed 2 of them and for a time had criplled one of them.
I also think that people have forgotten that Kaladin can be quippy, when he was feeling better and Shallan would make quips at him he would give it back, but now that he isn't super depressed and seems to be acting a little more like that people are mad. (I might very well be wrong and just misremembering, I know where was one scene where he and Shallan were taking digs at each other, so I might just be applying that to more than I should)
Totally agree - Kaladin is just one of my favourite characters ever and I enjoyed everything - and that ending was just great. I'm really not mad we're getting more of him in the following books
Kaladin the heart of the story
When all the eyes of the cosmere turned on Retribution, my first thought was delvers!
@@EllenSmyth YESSSSS!!!!
I thought that the Chana theory came from the Word of Brandon that said we had seen all 10 heralds, and we could easily find the other nine. In searching for Chana, the only one that made a wee bit of sense was Shallan's mother. (Looking. In 2017, Peter confirms that we have seen Chana onscreen by at least one character and at least one time in the first two books.)
Once Brandon took what he called a precocious (I think) sip of water as soon as he was overtly asked the Chana question in the spoiler Q&A, and both the bluntness of the question and Brandon's reaction may have been the best part of the whole Q&A, we knew Chana-Mama was going down. But even better than that, at the Worldhopper Ball, Chana-Mama showed up and got chased around by Wit telling her that Shallan was not yet ready to face seeing her and coping with all of that yet. He laid it on thick! Of course, y'all may have read the books before the Worldhopper Ball and Spoiler Q & A.
Plus, we know from book 1 IIRC(might be book 2) that Shallon's mom definitely agrees with the Skybreakers' radiant murders. From there, it's literally just connecting her to Nale and Ishar & that's more than enough info to make herald theory.
@@trolledchaos6531 And when we got a WoB that Taln did not break the Oathpact, we knew that some other herald had died and broken the pact. All of that was before the prologue. The theory was somewhat iffy before that time, but the prologue really drove home the timeline of Chana-Mama's death.
I would also add the element of Taln returning just before the Everstorm made him holding out irrelevant. That's really odd timing that makes a lot more sense if a herald died. Shallan's mom also acts pretty strangely. We also get Shallan bonding pattern who is certain that she will kill him, and the cryptics will send another. Which after Testament is kind of crazy they'd send a third unless there's some reason for them to be so fixated on her. The red hair I think really just narrowed it down for which herald. But there was a lot there pointing to a mystery we didn't know yet with Shallan's past specifically with her mother, and her being a herald fit very well. I think this was a great well set up reveal from Sanderson not just something from the red hair, or even just from the WoBs though they played a role.
It was a really solid well reasoned theory. It was based on much more than just her hair color as Alyx said. The foreshadowing was brilliant. Not so telegraphed that it was obvious, all the hints were there for the astute reader, and in hindsight it seems obvious.
That and a general sense of how brandon forshadows reveals with the shallan ended the world part from book 1
Thoughts from Dragonsteel Nexus:
1. The only time I felt star struck was at y’all’s booth.
2. Eric is exactly as I imagined. Such a Labrador retriever of a gentleman.
3. Ian is way taller than I thought.
4. David’s beard is a good look.
5. All of you guys seemed so genuine and kind. Thank you for representing our fandom so well.
Can't wait to hear Evgeni's take on the book! 😂
What I’m chiefly waiting for…
I'm excited to get past the reaction casts and into the more specific deep dives into individual topics. While I disagree with a lot of the negative opinions I do understand how people could have them and think they're perfectly valid. It has been pretty disappointing though and kind of killed the vibe to go from the high I felt while reading the book to seeing how much a lot of you guys disliked it. Mainly because I don't have any IRL friends to talk about the Cosmere with, so these videos and limited discord interactions are the only times I get to experience these books with other people. Once we get into the deep dives though I'm sure a lot of that sentiment will go away and we can all collectively nerd out again.
Next week is Contest of Champions / Retribution, and so you'll feel much better at home. Obviously, the intent isn't to harsh your vibes, totally get that. -Eric
@@17thShard No harm done at all. I understand the point of these reactions is to share your opinions and I wouldn't want you to be inauthentic about it because of the potential reactions that I and other people might have. Even though I disagree it is good to see different perspectives about the book and how other people experienced it. It was just a mismatch of what I expected from these casts and what I got. Ironically similar to how a lot of y'all felt about the book. lol
I think the first 30 chapters really affected people's opinion on it. I know I wasn't alone with thinking the preview chapters felt.. different. But it was also the last time we're seeing the characters together for a long time. Plus we read them over the course of a couple months so we focused on them more than normal.
There's definitely fair criticisms, but I think it's a much better book than RoW. The prose felt a little flat compared to normal and very matter of fact. Flowery prose never been something Brandon focuses on but to me it seemed like there was more telling and not showing at times.
@@beeman4266 I specifically avoided the preview chapters as I wanted to read the book all at once, so I can't really relate to that sentiment. Interesting to hear that though.
Imo Szeth taking a stand for not fighting Nale and asking for help was really massive growth from him instead of just being an excuse for kaladin to fight like I've seen some people argue for
actually reminded me of a certain One Piece scene that is one of my favorite scenes in media to date and I loved to see him trust someone else
Luffy help me?
I WEPT over that moment with Nami, and god I wish I could say the same for this, but... the emotion just really wasn't there in the same way. A completely different reaction, unfortunately.
Right? How is can people see that as Kaladin stealing Szeths moment? Not fighting IS Szeth's moment!
While I didn’t fully agree with everything, listening to you all share your opinions - which were, by and large well-founded and supported - was refreshing. I think it’s important to have this space to disagree about things, and to express both our positive feelings and our negative feelings. Because at the end of the day - this is art, so we won’t always agree. And that’s a good thing!
While it will probably be at least a year until I read the book again, the things I heard will definitely be things I think about next time through (not only as I read this book, but the entire series). Thank you all for this wonderful episode. And don’t let the haters get you down.
All of this concept of the Shards growing, learning, becoming fuller, and self-improving strongly reminds me of the religion of the One.
That’s what I’ve felt the ultimate Cosmere ending will be framed around…The Shards returning to “the One” after their journeys of self-improvement to reforge Adonalsium v.?
I think the big climactic scenes, other than the renunciation, could have used a little more emotion and build up so they punched harder but other than that I liked the book.
Definitely could have used more Vasher. The Nightblood character progression is soooo exciting.
I was just losing my mind thinking of all the conversations Nightblood must be having with all the Honorblades. That must have been quite an experience for it given all the things the Honorblades must have seen.
Honestly I really wanted a Nightblood conversing with Honorblades interlude... -Eric
@@17thShard if length was no issue, I think I would be very happy if we got 3 interludes after every part. With the extra interludes all just being conversations and reactions we didn't see during the day. Maybe them going to bed every night...
Nightblood was not asleep.
2:50:12 well I would argue this is showing he is bad at therapy that isn’t exactly the same as his specific situation… as he is the first therapist.
Makes sense to me
2:53:41 yeah I’m curious how people will view this later after further reflection.
I think your supposed to be mad at Kaladins failures
3:07:30 now this I agree more with. Kaladin should be better at this particular aspect of the therapy
3:17:57 I would also say I never felt like Kaladin was good at playing the flute
The problem isn't that he's bad at therapy.
The problem is, he's bad at therapy but it works anyway because he's the main character.
Id be interested on your takes of the 4th moon, in the part 1 they seem to think its just the well of control but my view was tfellit fell before the shards and honour didnt know what it was its described as a strange metel i was thinking some valuable metal thats going to be needed ie. Silver or some sort of ado god metal before the shattering?
We will definitely have an episode on fourth moon! Just to clarify, I don't believe we said the moon chunks were the Well of Control. They are certainly shielding it and making it hard to detect. I believe we speculated as to what that metal is, but that's not the same the Well of Control. -Eric
@17thShard yes sorry I knew you didn't think the moon chunks was the pool I just meant they wasn't much talk about it and I thought they would be I understand these things will need full episodes I'm looking forward to you argent and David talk about the more magic and cosmere building as a whole keep up the good breakdowns I love hearing your theory's on the channel
If argent has any early theory's he'd like to share I'd love a reply of him aswell thanks
10000% will discuss the moon more! -Eric
Love the channel, but gonna skip this one. I enjoyed the book and the opening universal negatively was a bummer. I’ll catch the next episode.
There's actually a good 90 minutes of positive, oddly enough, but yeah absolutely no worries! -Eric
@ good to hear, I’ll check it out
I think it doesn't get negative until about two hours, the Dalinar/Navani stuff, but yeah up through the True Desolation timestamp you should be good. -Eric
unfortunately me too - appreciate everyone sharing their opinions but reacts 1 had me feeling a bit down because Ioved the book - have found out that maybe reactions episodes aren’t for me!
Oh, yeah, if Reacts 1 was too much, I wouldn't watch the second half of this one, for sure. I am truly glad you loved the book though! I love it too. I'm at a good point (since my first read was a long time ago) where I can enjoy and meme with the rants and find it funny most times. -Eric
I loved the analysis in this episode. Looking forward to all the topic episodes where you all can deep dive into specific topics as everyone clearly has much more to say.
In a weird way I think that the book would have been better if it was a bit longer and the plot that we got in RoW was wrapped up more quickly (3 parts). It could have easily happened as we really didn’t do much in RoW. Some number of Venli flashbacks, Shallan traveling, kaladin defending, and navani sciencing could have been cut. They were all repetitive by the end of the novel. We could have started the countdown with the last two parts, ended with like a cool confrontation between odium and cultivation or something climactic that really set the tone for the upcoming end of the countdown. End of the book could have been hoid finding out what Tarovangian did or something.
The reason I say this is because it would have made RoW feel less repetitive and given Brandon more space to really nail plot lines that were almost very very good. I think that all of them were pretty close to feeling excellent, but ultimately felt a bit rushed. Kal and Szeth could have done a couple more things in shinovar. There would have been more room for development in the Moash V Sigzil battle which could have been awesome. More time for the spiritual realm to be explored from the dalinar and shallan side. More time for ba ado mishram to actually do something once free. More time for the battle of champions. Better Jasnah chapters.
Ultimately the macro story line was very good and Retribution was a great end to the first Arc. I don’t even dislike where a lot of the characters micro situations ended up, some of the ways that we got there just needed a little more polish imo.
"Shallan isn't close to either of these men" he is her brother in law, what?
She isn't allowed to be invested in the love life of the brother of her fiance/husbad of two years?
Because you are all closer to Renarin than she is, apparently?
Perhaps characters sometimes interact off page and just because family members don't have many scenes together doesn't mean they don't speak to eachother.
She can instantly pick him out in the spiritual realm from his tics, they've clearly spent a lot of time together.
They mean, "where on the page have they had a relationship" which is very minimal. -Eric
I understand passionate people having reacting passionately, epically with a project they had a lot of emotional energy and expectations for, but overall, I loved this book. It’s a masterpiece. There are parts that that I may have issue with, but this is an avengers endgame level book
But I love these hosts and I love the work that they put in! This is such a passion project for them that I appreciate so very very much!
I'm glad!! -Eric
Avengers Endgame is Dragonsteel. This is trying to be the first Avengers but it is like age of ultron (movie).
Avengers Endgame is a good metaphor for me because it's also not a perfectly executed movie which I was able to THOROUGHLY enjoy anyway.
I have a feeling that somewhere around book 7/8, a lot of folks who were negative on book 5 are going to do a reread and be like “oh crap, that book was freaking awesome”.
Lol yep! There are a lot of nitpicks lmao.
I hope so!
Not too sure as it depends on what one dislikes and however it’s conveyed in the text. For me, I tend to drift in a more critical (not necessarily negative) direction.
@@alexayers8904 one can be hopeful, right 😜
Yeah so many really big things happened in this book. Also it does a ton of setup and expands on the lore.
I love how Hoid figured out he'd been hacked when his checksum test failed. :)
My issue with this book is that Shallan´s issues was not solved in book 4. I felt the Shallan stuff were repetitive.
There were also too many view points to go through in the final book. I loved the hero og ages revelations because there were not too many view points, but stormlight has too many. Some of it should have been solved in previous books. This book felt like a slog to me. I still liked the book. I give it 6/110.
Feels like a big theme going forward is self aware investiture. Syl, honor, etc.
Oh, I just remembered, nightblood was the other investiture thing learning and changing.
3:05:18 i think Kaladin's character felt like it had a lot of "hand of the author" in it.
Kaladin considering that Szeth should perhaps unalive himself felt like Brandon was pointedly adressing the audience who felt that way, or an audience who wasn't as empathetic to Szeth because of his crimes etc. It's also why i think he switched POV to Kaladin when Szeth is weeping with his plushie. He wanted the reader to connect with Szeth but he felt he couldn't do it and therfore used Kaladin/Tien as a crutch to do it.
I feel like that's the reason why Kaladin's arc or his character feels a little off and out of place at times.
I'll just assume its the Wind instead 😉
So, on the "at least there was no Unmade" comment in the Chana section...Brandon has said there was an Unmade influencing the Davar household. Was this just misdirection, or is there still yet another secret in Shallan's past? Maybe plays into the whole 'why would Chana pick Lin?' question? Hm.
It was a bit weird when the Worldhopper Ball made this reveal though. The dialog apparently became more explicit at later sessions; At ours on the last day, Chana was going on about how she had to see her, and Wit explicitly says she has to go back to Braize.
I want Syl to fight in the back half. I like the idea that the fifth Ideal gives the radiant a partner to fight beside. Weapon, armor, then partner. I only don't know how it works with Kaladin having a weapon. Will he have an honorspear like we saw manifest in the oathpact creation?
Oh I'm also totally expecting Kaladin's entrance in Book 6 or whatever to be very similar to him saving Cenn in his first few chapters. "And suddenly he was there. Stormblessed."
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, I guess. lol
I really want Brandon to write a whole lot of short stories set during the 10 year time skip on Roshar, and release it as a collection at the beginning of the year of whenever he decides to release Stormlight 6 to prepare as for diving back into a changed Roshar
OK, which alternative do you like?
1)No Elantris sequels
2)Add a year to the gap before Stormlight 6
3)No Rock novella and also add 6 months to the gap
Pick at least one.
@carl11547 well a rock novella can be part of the collection. Short stories are probably easier to write for Brandon, it's the editing that takes time, so add a year to the next Stormlight release and give us more Roshar stories, pre and during the time skip.
Did anyone else cringe really hard when Kaladin reused the badass line in book 2? I seriously don't understand why Brandon wanted to reuse that line; a lot of the other callbacks were very tasteful and cute, but this felt gross. Kaladin basically looks right at the camera and talksnto the audience, it's so jarring. I don't think that line would've struck him as memorable to himself as it is to us, and he certainly wouldn't blurt it out. It was so awkward, and really taints that awesome scene in book 2 for me
I smiled when I read it, but I think it should've been left out or changed a bit. It felt forced. A nice call-back, but still felt weird.
@beeman4266 he should've written a new cool line
@@Thecurseofsanity it was a missed opportunity really
You aren't the only with this issue, for sure. And in general with "quips" in this one. -Eric
Mark my words that a "mature" honor/odium shard could be shifted to an intent of Redemption. The concept is even signaled within several parts of the book, and if Taravangian is defeated, I think it is very possible someone could pick up the shards to mark that shift.
Justice seems more likely.the character arc of Honor and it's lack of understanding of what is right and empathy, obedience etc feel very much in line with Szeth's character arc and the notion of what the law means for the common man.
@Haxerous justice seems just as Vague a concept as honor if you ask me and I believe if justice is what it turns into it would literally be honor 2.0 as there are horrible things that have been done in the name of justice.
@@XxnifflashxX all the shard concepts are vague. That's just how that works.
@@XxnifflashxX also for it to become redemption it would need Cultivation to be in there as well
@Haxerous fair point they are all Vague. but how does honor + odium + cultivation = redemption?
Sounds like chaos
While I completely disagree about the Szeth and Kaladin opinions, I do agree about Nale. It was honestly weird how hard the Wind had to push to get Kaladin to attempt to see the person who was tortured on humanity's behalf for thousands of years as a person who deserved his help. I think if Brandon pushed deeper into why Kaladin had those feelings it might have worked but it felt very surface level. Like a knee jerk reaction which I needed more context for, especially given he knows the Heralds are all insane.
I think the saddest part of these reactions for me isn't that their negative but about how a lot of these problems don't seem fixable. Like there's nothing Brandon can do to undo a lot of the damage this book did to the series for many of you guys. Part 2 of Stormlight will have this as its foundation.
That is a very kind thought to have, thank you!
It's like they somehow took a part of the story they dislike and stripped of the context that gave that meaning.
Yeah I think it also would've been easy to add that Kaladin had heard about how many radiants had been killed by Nale. That would've been entirely reasonable. Their spren survived and likely bonded other radiants Kaladin would know. I think Kaladin's feelings about Nale would've worked better if that had been the foundation that he'd heard about dozens of spren who found bonds with radiants who were then murdered by Nale. And Kaladin had to deal with putting that feeling aside to look at Nale as someone with this mental issue to address and feel sympathy for him.
@@tadious9415 Syl literally spent 2 books trashing Nale and all the skybreakers in general to Kaladin, and they were trying to kill Tien too.
So, it's not hard to imagine that Kaladin would have to be pushed to empathize with Nale or any Skybreaker.
Just remember how hard was for Kaladin to understand Adolin who literally never did anything wrong in front of Kaladin.
@@DarkChaos1986 literally spending two books doing that implies it's more than a handful of mentions from Syl. Which is there but at the start of her dislike of Skybreakers she also couldn't even answer his question of what are Skybreakers?
I don't think Kaladin ever knows that they were trying to kill Tien. Or if anyone alive actually knows that Tien was a budding radiant in the books.
I think for that to be a good justification for it though we should've gotten some mentions from Kaladin of what Nale and the skybreakers had done to show that at least slightly on his mind. The justification works for sure even if it's just Kaladin remembering some windrunners who had died to skybreakers in the war. But we don't get any of that is my point. We don't get that there's any specific source for Kaladin's distrust of Nale it's just present.
Argent’s slight smile the whole time makes me think he made some valuable contributions to this book & he’s glad to see them being talked about
Also Shannon is over here contemplating the foreshadowing instead of speeding through it like the smooth brain I am haha
Okay I have to disagree with the Kaladin treatment
big eyes emoji i love contemplating
Most of us did! I am more fond of my friends' and fellow beta's contributions, and proud for them too. I was mostly smiling because I like talking about these books with my friends :)
@@_argent that’s one of the most heartwarming replies in the Cosmere. My golden retriever-axehound approves
I think we all see these negativities, but I’m so glad this book is HERE. the only other reliable author I know is Joe Abercrombie
And also…thank you all for helping him. We see you as TH-camrs or Podcasters…..but you are the real life Pillars of Mammoth proportions. It may not be your book but it is HIS book.
Rather it be written then feared and forgotten
The majority of criticisms in this episode don't quite ring true for me personally---in particular, while I definitely agree that Kaladin took up too much of Szeth's space on a narrative level, I don't think Kaladin botched any of what he was doing in-world as severely as most of the people on this podcast do, and think most of it comes down to presentation issues---but I really admire everyone's ability to feel both very negatively about certain things and still maintain a lot of positive feelings about the book. It's something I struggle with a lot.
Lord I was really looking forward to this but I'm not sitting through 3 more hours of this group hating and nitpicking this book. I think I need to take a break from this channel
I think the topics will be much more up your alley. Reactions are where we can be more critiquey. That was how TLM and RoW went. Also at least so far in the premiere, they haven't gotten negative yet :P
I am glad you liked the book, of course! Lots have, lots have also really hated it it seems. -Eric
People hated lost metal and loved bands of mourning. I liked lost metal and rank bands of mourning as my least favorite cosmere book. So, we might not all like the same books.
Yes! Reactions vary, and that's okay. But it's also completely fine that if you love the book then you can skip this one overall. -Eric
1:34:28 "shallan and rayse's relationship" what?? am I hearing that right?? (I've read w&t)
I assume "Mraize, not Rayse."
@OliveDrabCrusader omg 🤦♀️I'm as stupid as the first oathpact
Lol! It was Shallan after all…she most likely forgot about it 😂 I think she meant Adolin
@@pretty5793 No, she absolutely ships Shallan with Mraize and has been interested in their relationship since Mraize's introduction.
@@greywatch9365oh really! I have never thought anyone would ship Shallan and Mraize. Thank you for the clarification.
Cultivation wanted this outcome. She literally said she wanted Taravangian to carry Odium “with honor”!
So negative. I get the feeling they all had a way they wanted the book to go and were disappointed it didn't go that way. Personally I thought it was peak Sanderson. I got the same vibes from it I did all the other books only everything was scaled up. It's unfortunate because this is like the main cosmere channel on yt and the general negativity doesn't seem representative of the greater fandom.
A lot of this is "knee-jerk reactions", hard to keep personal expectations out of it. This book isn't without issues, some of which are decently conveyed in this video. It would seriously help to have more structure to this type of discussion, where the group can agree on a set of notes and have references.
I thought Brandon did an admirable job with this sprawling story that was constrained to 10 days. I don't know if any other author could handle such a gargantuan task as well. Some great character moments, even though parts of it felt a bit heavy handed in getting the pieces in the right place for book 6/cosmere. The plotlines were overall tight and trending together, which is something he does very well. Also introduced a lot of big ideas that we can all chew on before book 6
I think this inherently is a problem with big series. Everyone is built up slowly with different expectations. Yes, critiques can be a personal issue, but I think if you check out Reacts 1 comments, there are plenty of positive comments but plenty of way more negative comments than this. And the things that are good or bad vary wildly!
I think this will continue as the series progresses, too. -Eric
Also, I'm not sure it isn't reflective. From what I've seen it's pretty mixed. But don't worry, it'll be different when get into more topic episodes which are more analysis. -Eric
@@mark-roes Yeah nothing is perfect and there are definitely parts I didn't like so much. I guess I expected people with a channel dedicated to talking about the cosmere to at least balance the good with the bad. It seemed very negative. It's strange because it's not like the book bombed or changed in a big way from the other books. Like on Amazon and Goodreads it's rated very highly. I feel like the general style, themes, characters were very much in line with previous books.
@@17thShardYeah I watched the first one. It seemed more positive to me. Surely you guys can find someone who likes the book to balance things out so it feels more like a discussion than a bashing.
I think the back 5 books are set up very well. I really hope Brandon can tone down the mental health and/or internal struggle every character is constantly dealing with. Let's see some more external struggles, like giant monsters trying to kill good guys!
Has anyone thought on Vasher? How is he gonna get investiture now?
He did seem to have a lot of Breath saved up, so hopefully that's enough. Otherwise maybe he can figure out a way to subsist on Warlight
I feel like a lot of people going into the debate had a much grander version of Jasnah in their head than what was ever actually in the book. Yeah when we first meet her people say that she's a great philospher, but everything she ever actually said or did came down to "I'm going to do what serves my interests best" and the only reason it even vaguely resembled utilitarianism is because she's not a totally selfish person so her personal interests tended to align with helping people. Everything Taravangian said was 100% right about her, she has spent four books claiming to be something that she isn't and now it bit her in the ass.
You are so right.
Jasnah was very grand in WoK. She's been filed down over time to be less so.... particularly this book more than others.
I'm so glad you guy are doing this content. The comment section is also a treasure trove on these videos.
Hah, it certainly is driving a lot of engagement! (Though the intent is not to be rage-bait. These are all honest opinions.) Thanks for watching! -Eric
The kaladin jackass remark is just weird. Completely disagree
Kaladin is good with the flute because he will be good with the flute.
I feel like the things I hate about this novel are mostly things I’ve hated about every Sanderson novel and it’s weird that it suddenly bothers us now.
Will you guys be talking about the flashbacks in later episodes?
Probably! -Eric
These episodes have been great. All the criticisms have been fair and I feel like everyone on cast has a great sense of narrative, plot, and theme.
The more time I think about WaT, the more I’m ultimately happy with its destination but upset with its journey, which is one of the most frustrating things to say about a series where journey comes before destination lol
this actually made me lol but is so true!
Many have said this before me, but yes this book was absolutely destination before journey unfortunately. Thankfully, that destination does indeed set up the back 5 very well.
@@micahlarimer155 100%! Just a frustrating wait in the meantime :')
@@greywatch9365 thanks so much for your feedback on this episode. It really helped me think about Kaladin/Szeth interactions from a new perspective. I’m currently in therapy myself and found the flute scene equally dissatisfying, me having experience with what my own journey of therapy has looked like and how little that matched what was portrayed in the scene for Nale.
I maybe of a different opinion than a lot of people with this, but I really wish Sanderson hadn’t gone with a ten day setup for this book. At the very least the Szeth/Kaladin plot line would have worked better if it had happened outside of the ten days and as its own book or novella. It really felt like a different book than the rest of the story with the payoff only explaining how the spren still exist on Roshar. Usually I can’t tell that Sanderson writes Stormlight books as three books, each all the way through, before weaving them together. This one it was very obvious the divisions, partially because of the settings but also because the themes in each of the three books felt very different. Szeth’s arc was about giving up entirely the fight for an ideal that you believe in, while Adolin’s arc was about fighting for the promises that you’ve made to those around you, not because they are oaths, but because you value the people you made those promises to, and it’s the smart/right thing to do. Meanwhile, Dalinar’s arc was about learning to break oaths for the greater good of everyone. Oddly, I felt like Dalinar was the most utilitarian character in the end, even more than Odium or Jasnah. I think these three ideas had a lot of potential and can overlap in some ways but Szeth’s story stands out as really anti-climatic. His moving away from fighting only reinforces other characters whereas when Dalinar does it, it causes real consequences for Odium. I’ll wager Sanderson thought Szeth needed to stop fighting because he really wanted to emphasize a freedom of choice that Szeth possesses. That’s hard, however, to sell in a book where most every other character gets an epic moment of saying their ideal, fighting in insane and powerfully moving ways, and beating the villain. I think Sanderson was trying to be more nuanced with Szeth to show that at times people really are conscripted into a life that they never really wanted to live, become really good at that life, and then feel they must always live out that life in every situation, or else they aren’t valued. I think it’s a bold move to have Szeth stand aside and not fight in the end, but there was no cathartic moment of valuing Szeth’s choice, no weight to that choice, no peace attributed to him that could have told the reader, “hey, the hero isn’t kaladin in this moment” it’s Szeth for stepping back and choosing a path that he started out not believing was a possibility.
I also think with added pages in a novella about Szeth and Kaladin in Shinovar, Sanderson could have lessened book five’s length, given more pages for the therapy and Szeth’s story arc, and probably gotten a lot more focused sensitivity readings for that section if it had been completely separate. I know Kaladin has always been Sanderson’s through line for Stormlight and this was Szeth’s book, but for the book Sanderson wrote, this was Adolin’s book, not Szeth’s. And if he had wanted to change and make this Adolin’s book, give him flashbacks and all that, I think it would have really worked better than this one. Even Wheel of Time has a book without one of its main characters. It’s okay to do that in an epic fantasy series.
I did find Kaladin’s Tien/Szeth connection moving rather than off-putting on my read but I really want to go back and re-read the book now that I’ve heard your criticisms and see if I feel similarly to you.
Either way, thanks for your thoughtful comments on this book! Happy to live parasocially with others through ya’lls comments and conversations
@Diredirectv Lots of very thoughtful response here. I definitely agree that the ten day structure hurt the story of these two in particular, I'm nodding throughout a LOT here. Really great thoughts, thank you for watching and for commenting.
Dalanaar used the limited sentience the shard gained to hack its intent to be less aligned with odium
I love the story for this book. All my frustrations come from execution and it isn’t even the author’s fault. This book has taught me the importance of a good editor. If the story was presented differently it could have been as good as Words of Radiance.
I see a lot placed on the editor, but I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. There’s a lot of factors from time crunch to business pushes to authorial pushes to cost-benefit analysis that I think had a bigger effect here.
@@alexayers8904yep! That is why I rated the book at 4/5 after my re-read.
4/5 is a fair rating. I certainly don't think it's below than 3/5. But people have high expectations for Brandon! -Eric
I'm really curious - Brandon said that Taravangian picking up Odium was only one option on his outline, and he had other plans. But if Rayse was opposed to picking up another shard, how were we going to get Retribution at the end of book 5 without Taravodium?
Depends if Retribution was always the end goal. Brandon could just change Rayse earlier on to be open, but hesitant (as we don’t know much about Rayse, in general).
Grey (I think?) had a theory where Dalinar would ascend to Honor then lose the contest, if something like that happened, it's very possible Rayse could've been forced to become Retribution. Also, I believe he said Taravangian ascending at that point was only one option, and that he was always going to ascend eventually
happy to see another episode so soon! will you be continuing the weekly cadence for a bit post WaT?
Yes! -Eric
Maybe the kaladin hate is a tone miscommunication
In the audiobook Micheal Kramer is voicing kaladin with a lot of doubt and thought behind his therapeutic thinking
I can see if you read his tone as more malicious or aggro it might flavour the whole storyline differently
Perhaps. Acting does apply a layer that text cannot.
I do think Kal (who I had less issues with than others) does still come across as annoying almost to his and Szeth’s detriment. There’s a splash of unintentional Dalinar in Kal this book.
A lot of the issues with Kaladin being a therapist and flutist seem like everyone is thinking he's being portrayed as an expert at either. Kaladin is trying new things and fumbling through them. He's a novice making obvious (to modern audiences) mistakes in therapy and reached a point of "I can recognize what song you're playing" on the flute.
He's not a therapist, he's an aspiring therapist. He's trying to figure out what that means, how it works, and reconciling that with the rest of his life while he figures out who he is. He knows that's what was happening with his PTSD support group and not much else. Maybe he got some basic therapy info from Wit off-screen, but even then he's basically a first-month undergrad learning how to do something nobody on his planet does. He handles it poorly and struggles to connect with people who have been adversaries and that's totally expected.
If the point is how inexperienced and fumbling he is, then maybe the book could have had him actually not fully center on them during some of Szeth's emotional moments and have him win on these points anyway... At some point, "Kaladin is new at this" doesn't cover quite that much ground of the issues I had.
@greywatch9365 I agree he shouldn't have been taking all the space in Szeth's story. Szeth basically learned to have free will and immediately abdicated his role in the story. Cheapens it a lot.
My comment was more focused on the bad therapy aspect and changes to Kaladin's character. Not great but I can accept it and see some reasoning for it.
@@TacticalFluke92 Yeah, that's all fine, totally. But the way the word therapist is used in the book, the outright start to finish win that Kaladin gets on this.... it doesn't match any of the comments flooding this episode, the tone of what some folks would have me believe the book is trying to say about Kaladin's skill level does not match what the book is telling me about Kaladin's story. And I'm very sorry to everyone who feels that way, but I can't join you in that, it feels like inventing a little bit of extra justification on the side to make it work better - but it's just not in the book. It's just how I feel.
I've been able to sharpen and redirect a little of the Kaladin thoughts I've had in the comments and I'm happy for the opportunity thoughtful responses like yours offer. It's appreciated!
I was expecting the spiritual realm to be like the Warp in WH40K
My body is ready!
I think that "Why would Chana choose that man, of all possible people, for a husband - and why not sooner or later?" are exactly the correct things to ask.
Not to be mean or insensitive, but I completely understand and sympathize where Kalandin is coming from in not wanting to help/save Nale and Szeth. While it turns out that they can be saved, they did commit countless murders. Szeth basically killed enough nobles in Jah Kaved to trigger a civil war, and Nale kille all of the budding radiants that otherwise might have saved the world, nearly ordering the death of Shallan and directly causing the suffering for Kaladin! Storms, Kaladin would not have been a slave if not for the hit Nale placed on Amaram. In my personal day to day life, there are many people that I would never harm, but sometimes I think the world would be better off without. For Kaladin to think this in the face of his world's equivalent of the head of the SS or NKVD is completely justifiable in my opinion. That said, I understand where most of the 17th Shard is coming from via a more psychological as opposed to sociological/political perspective. Turns out that the average/median person is not a mass murderer
I guess this is a somewhat hot take, but the Jasnah debate scene wasn't all that bad. As some one who isn't well versed in philosophy (besides a surface level understanding), the detail was fine. I think it makes sense that Jasnah wouldn't be well versed in defending her utilitarian views, as most of the time people only want to discuss her religious/ heretical views. There likely hasn't been that much time for self reflection in the time since Oathbringer due to the war, so having the realization only hitting home now that she can't commit to utilitarian views is fine.
I'm not saying it couldn't be better, I'm sure there were ways to weave in deeper philosophy without losing some one with my shallow background knowledge, and Fen could have had more agency. I just don't think it's as bad as most on shardcast make it out to be. But to each their own.
I think it depends on how aware of philosophy someone is. I didn’t have much an issue until the end (because the ending note was like the basic 101 counter to utilitarianism which makes it strange that Jasnah had nothing for it).
I think it would’ve helped if it were more couched in the negotiations between Odium and Fen.
Gavilar being the champion would've worked really well if this was just a 5 book series, like it would've tied up the books so well.
I think yall brought too much of ur own "baggage" into the kal stuff. You should get back to trying to understand what is being given instaed of looking for how you expect/want a thing to play out
Agreed. I'm not a fan of a directed criticism so it pains me to say that I found Shannon, and by proxy Alyx, really took over this episode and spoilt parts of it. I would've liked to hear Eve, Marvin and Evgeni more
Is it baggage to say, "I'm not a fan of character who attempted suicide days ago to say another character should kill themselves"? Like... Really? I did not mind the scene in question but surely you can see why people could really despise that.
And also, I think it's reasonable they wanted more Szeth in the Szeth book, and don't like he was done dirty. Is that seriously bringing in too many preconceived notions into things? -Eric
@@17thShard yea, that read is more based on ur perspectives on those subjects more than the characters. when kal has that thought he is doubting his ability to help, its basically him saying "what do i know?". szeth murdered people and feels immense guilt so he thinks he should not live. in any other context Kal would agree with that. so he basically doesnt feel like he has ground to stand on. because Kal's suicide attempts were essentially him giving up, Szeth's would have been punishment for his crimes by way of seppuku. its not the same as what Moash tried to do in row.
on a meta level- it cant just be a Szeth book its a finale and Kal is John Stormlight, but wanting more Szeth is understandable if he is a fav character
Sure, I totally see what you're saying, and I didn't have the issue with the scene personally, but I just want to say, if you DID have issues with the scene, it comes across as:
"You know, I really hated when one of my favorite characters punched that dog really hard. Not a fan!"
"Well actually, he had really good reasons to punch the dog and it's not that bad..."
Not a perfect analogy but I'm trying to illustrate how people can perfectly understandably have a moral issue to a thing, and really not like it. If that's bringing baggage in from outside the book, like... Doesn't literally everyone, in every piece of media? Ever? I just don't think that's a super fair criticism when I'm sure literally all of us bring in our perspectives to everything we consume, all the time, and that always influences the reaction one has. It's not possible to say in so many of those situations, "Well, you don't get it, you should look at the story for what it is" when they DID look at the story, and really had a reaction against some things. I know you know what this feels like when you've consumed other pieces of media. Like, I'm sure in some cases you can, in some cases you can't. It varies. It's a spectrum. That doesn't mean people who had a different reaction are incorrect per se.
As Brandon said in his WaT release party speech: a story does not live until the reader reads it. The reader paints the picture. The reader is the director. There is no version of the book without that aspect where you personally are not building this in your mind, where your expectations don't matter.
And like, I get it, it's tough to hear critique on a character you love. But as a person who does really like almost everything in the book, I can see what people are saying, and that doesn't make it invalid/incorrect. -Eric
This... misses the possibility that I understood what I was given and disliked it anyway. It's very common in the comments to suggest that if we just "understood" more, we'd have fewer negatives, but this isn't the case. I went into this book excited for Kaladin's arc first and foremost, fearing for Kaladin first and foremost. He lost me on the spot during some moments, not because I was looking for reasons to dislike it, but because something in those scenes genuinely hit in a bad way. I came up alternative ways that might have felt better for me personally WEEKS after the first time I read them, sometimes months. Those weren't ideas I had going /in/ to the book.
Defintely valid complaints, though it was still a solid fun and adventurous book personally
I didn’t love everything about WaT and certainly don’t mind hearing critical observations of Sanderson but this episode’s general tone of haterade-marinated smugness is very off-putting.
But I do, at least, appreciate them flying that flag early, allowing me to just dip out. So thanks for that.
I thought it was interesting that Dalinar thought that he could "manage the Cosmere War" as Odiums general like he'd have any kind of free will in it. As I understood it, he was to become a Fused, and therefore, Odium would have full control of his soul. Like how in the contest, Odium was able to fully control Gav.
1:17:27 @evgeni "well... Skill issue" was such a sick burn!
I agree with Argent that Maya's intentions were obvious, at least to me. I actually figured out that she was going to bring back the dead-eyes early on, mostly because why else would Sanderson have spent time having Maya explain them at the start of the book.
Can't wait to hear how Alyx feels about the Mraize situation.
And another one... "Shallan was too wierdly controlling about what they should do with Mishram... that was weird" Its 3 people basically deciding if they should do from her PoV the equivalent launching a nuke and she is supposed to not have an opinion or not fight for it, just trusting the decision of the 2 people you were saying 10 minutes ago she barely knows.
Her opinion wasn't any stronger than the other two, it just wasn't the opinion you liked.
I mean yeah, I'll own that, I hated the way she did it. I found her a little weirdly controlling with the other two the whole spiritual realm trip, and I'll absolutely own that I didn't like it because I didn't like it. Tautological reasoning works for some things I suppose!
Who is on that thumbnail?
Cultivation, by Miranda Meeks. It's one of the endpages. Link in the description! -Eric
#1 hater of how Brandon writes Jasnah, checking in. Give it time, you'll realize that he's always been writing her in a cliched manner.
“Szeth has actually not been a character in Kaladin’s interactions before” Szeth didn’t try to kill Kaladin??? Am I misunderstanding this? I like all of these people but man this episode was wild. Opinions shared as facts. I hate how frustrated I feel 😤
Cultivation on the thumbnail - come on guys let’s hear your take on retribution / honor / odium and cultivation!!!
I'll stand by the idea that this book should have been at least 30 days.
I think the 10 day structure didn't leave any room to breathe. There's valid criticism for sure, but this is also the culmination of 4 books and there was a lot to get through.
It's tough really, the 10 day structure gives a good excuse for every character to be doing something on a mission but it also hurts the possibilities of the characters.
Like in all the previous books, we really didn't know where we were going in the last 20% of the book. But with WaT we knew it was culminating in the battle of champions and all the other plot threads setup at the beginning of the book.
@beeman4266 I think it was done the best that it could have been but we just needed more time to breathe especially with how long the book is. So many characters have such massive changes in such a short time which of course it's a book they're in different realms or dealing with gods and so a lot can change but it would feel a lot more believable and feel a lot more substantial if it happened over even just a bit of a longer period.
This shardcast is sped up a little bit, no?
Nope! -Eric
2:59:50
Does Ene think Hitler shouldn't have done his most noble deed? These are thoughts that people in the real world have. The book is for ADULT fantasy enjoyers and contain complex and intense topics.
I think Brandon handled the sewer slide topic with finesse.
My biggest gripe with the Szeth Kaladin section is actually pretty small but it's just the fact that Szeth accepting death like that is clearly against Life before Death and should have consequences on his bond and his spren should have been vehemently against that.
How many of you are betas, if I may ask?
It seems like the early readers had a lot more negative reactions to the book compared to the general populace.
"The flute chapter is bad." These people did not have a childhood.
I think Brandon killed it with the moral of questioning absolute, unbending law throughout! Szeth's arc really culminated for me with the "I see no evil, merely confusion" line and how Nightblood is also growing
Thank god this isn't ***the perfect book***, that would put every cast member and many viewers out of our dreams of writing something like this one day 😅
Can not wait for this one. Last one skewed way a little too negative for me to find it an enjoyable listen but respect the opinions. Love Evgeni
So I haven't seen this yet, but I am told this skews MUCH more negative. Just FYI... -Eric
Thanks for warning :) Love the channel
2:12:30 Shannon explained the spiritual realm stuff perfectly, that exact feeling damn. My attention didn't know where to go because all the scenes felt relevant and almost none of ghe conversations felt relevant to the scene?
In defense of the SR scenes, I think part of the purpose was to give context to the Herald stuff in the other plot lines.
But it does feel mostly “hey, look at this cool worldbuilding stuff that is completely irrelevant to Dalinar”. If Chana can pop up in SR, perhaps there could’ve been a bit of crossover with Ishar and Nale to cross the arcs a little.
@alexayers8904 i actually realised last night that one of the reasons this entry worked so much less for me is that so goddamm much of it feels like a straight forward lore dump
Shallan's brothers definitely are affected either by hereditary Herald madness or an Unmade.
I do not think that tbere are so many world-altering things that are connected to Shallan per se. Of the world-altering ones, I think that they are more connected to, or explained by, the identity of her mother. The rest are personal.
Shannon is absolutely insufferable this podcast. And I agree with a lot of what she said. She's just incredibly combative and really takes over.
Excuse me? She probably spoke the most, but she hardly took over. She was passionate about the book, which ... is kind of why I tune in.
I will rest my chin on my hands and ask you, insufferably, what is combative about the way I was on this podcast with my friends that I was having a lot of fun with?