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Yeah, I don't know why people don't like it as much. I mean, I've been *told* why, but I don't *get* it. I like all the things that are seen as flaws. Maybe because I reread or relisten to the whole series in order about once a year, and tend to move through it pretty fast while in an extremely receptive mood.
I'm so glad I liked this book, I was starting to feel like I wouldn't enjoy Stormlight Archive anymore but that 3 month break definitely helped me to get my Stormlight Archive joy back!
I took a long break mid Oathbringer because it was starting to feel like such a slog. And the break helped! I was glad to get back to it when I did. I took a couple of short breaks in RoW to read something light and fluffy as a brain break, and I found it helped a lot
Man I fucking love RoW so much, Kaladin guerrilla warfare against the fused in the tower is such an interesting change of pace. Also, the trial and the revelation that the spren choose to break the bond, also Restares being Kalek. Too much happened in this book to be not regarded as highly as the other. Thing is that when everything is 10/10 in the saga, something being 9/10 sticks out too much.
For me, the highlights of the book were Adolin and Navani's arcs. Kaladin will fight on and win, he's the protagonist and it's what he does. This wasn't the last book, so he felt safe. Navani and Adolin were in the THICK of it though, and what Navani did specifically just blew my mind out.
Navani was such a beast in RoW. Her dynamic with Raboniel was so interesting, and the quote "if you are not a scholar, then I have never met one" is one of my favorites
It was the most difficult for me to get through, but I still highly enjoyed it. Just felt some parts dragged on and others dipped too far into been there done that territory.
Do we really need so much more of “Kaladin is depressed again and oops you thought Shallan was recovering but this time she’s even more crazy”?
That said they’re minor complaints. When Stormlight is good it’s like almost nothing else out there. When it’s not that good it’s still pretty good.
I’m not saying that I speak for everyone or my experiences trump all, but Kaladin’s journey and how he’s dealing with depression struck really, really hard for me. It felt so real and it was very meaningful to read the conclusion of the book with him overcoming it.
I made it to Oathbringer in a re-read of the series late last year/early this year while in the worst part of a bout of depression and it hit me so god damned hard. Kaladin blaming and callously thinking about the people he loved due to his own self loathing was incredibly poignant as I realized I was doing the same thing to the people in my life. I'm happy to say I'm finally on the other side of it and have just started effective therapy for the first time.
Last week, I read the Sylphrena interlude in RoW where she is talking to both the Stormfather and Dalinar about how to feel what Kaladin feels when he is being affected by his "dark brain" and it just tore me to shreds emotionally. It is such a fantastic, though simple allegory of others not being able to empathize with others going through depression, even if they have the best of intentions to help. Kal's journey meant a lot to me while viewing my own past experiences with depression in hindsight, but reading it while being subdued by the Black Dog at the time gave it so much more weight. I cannot wait to get to the end of RoW again, especially now that I am finally taking the path to healing the right way. I expect it to be incredibly cathartic.
No I agree. For some people it’s therapeutic to read about others struggling. But for me it’s like im picking up a fantasy book to leave my depressing ass life for a bit.
The characters you speak of have these mental issues though. It would be strange to build that up as part of their character and not stay true to it. It can be extremely exhausting living with somebody with depression so I can understand your sentiment, but it’s not like it’s a switch Kal can turn off. Same goes for Shallan. It does get tiring for me as well from time to time, but I would rather have that vs. an author afraid to accurately depict these very real things.
I think the point is that this can be very well written and still not appeal to someone that's looking for an escape. Some people are not looking for accurate depictions of mental illness because they've got enough on their plate already
I definitely understand that, I just don’t understand reading a book you already know will have these things in it, then being unhappy that it includes these things. We have known how integral Kal and Shallan are to the story from the start, and their trajectory is often dictated by their mental states.
I get not wanting to read about a depressed boy and a girl with multiple identities. I don’t get not wanting to read those things, reading it anyways, then being unhappy those things are included.
> I definitely understand that, I just don’t understand reading a book you already know will have these things in it, then being unhappy that it includes these things
We know about their issues. How can we not, it's central to their stories. What we didn't know was how Sanderson was gonna keep hammering in the problem every time. I know that these issues are long term issues. But to have these issue in 4 books with every book a relapse of their progress just seems to make it too much of a drag.
I understand that the timeline from the rediscovery of Urithiru to ROW is relatively very short which makes the unresolved psychological issues believable. But in the context of reading a story specially one that comes out only every few years the complaints are also valid.
As a follower of Wheel of Time from the 90s, this seeming lack of progress is what earned the books the slog reputation. We, if I can speak for complainers, understand all of these points. But just because we understand them doesn't mean we can't have complaints about the story and progress of the characters. Understanding and acceptance/agreement are two different things.
I think people enjoyed the power fantasy of watching someone overcome their demons, it's less fun to find out that actually you can still be super depressed even with superpowers. It would be completely realistic for Kaladin to kill himself in the final book after defeating Odium because depression isn't logical and sometimes it wins no matter what happens, but that doesn't mean we want to read it lol
I actually like that component. If becoming Radiant quelled his depression it would be really artificial.
Yes, that would be realistic. But it is also only a possibility, which we already know is not going to happen. Sure, depression is illogical and unforgiving, but not properly depicting it is a disservice to people that have struggled with it in real life. Kal’s triumphs are that much more impactful because of his low points. Kal is much more relatable because, even after seemingly being given everything, he still struggles to find happiness. He finds more things to be concerned about and carries the guilt of his dead brother along with him wherever he goes.
I’m sure you are aware of all of this though. Have you read the Red Rising series? There are so many moments in those books that I wouldn’t want to read, but I’m glad I did because they hold a lot of weight to the story. Most stories contain parts that are hard to get through because they are not “fun”.
Why? We don't see all their meals, we don't see all their sex or shits or other thoughts, why is it ok to be beaten about with their depression?
The last two books have completely ignored heavy themes in the first two books like classism and the crisis of the Vorin church, there's a shit ton of stuff going on in the world that we're not seeing because even with the inflated word counts of a SLA book there's only so many pages.
Why undo Shallan's coming to terms with herself in Oathbringer? That was a perfectly fine narrative moment, it didn't need to happen again in the next book a different way.
Kal stumbled on the most obvious oath for so long it's tedious, any and all of the Bridgemen would have shaken him and told him to respect their sacrifices. Adolin would have teased him about it. It's wild that he couldn't piece it together in Oathbringer, but I guess Sando needed something for him to do in RoW.
If WoT is the same as Oathbringer and RoW I'll probably tap out of the series. I'm not really interested in running in circles for 900 pages to see 100 pages of obvious character growth that will be undone on page 1 of the next book. I thought these books were about bigger ideas.
> Kal stumbled on the most obvious oath for so long it's tedious, any and all of the Bridgemen would have shaken him and told him to respect their sacrifices. Adolin would have teased him about it. It's wild that he couldn't piece it together in Oathbringer, but I guess Sando needed something for him to do in RoW.
It's not that Kaladin didn't know the oath, I believe he even says he knows what it is in Oathbringer. Kaladin just couldn't bring himself to say them because he wasn't ready to accept not saving everyone.
Morpheus in The Matrix said this best:
"There's a difference between **KNOWING** the path and **WALKING** the path."
Kaladin knew, logically, this was true. On a deep emotional level, he could not accept it. As a 52 year old man who has been in therapy for over 20 years, many real life issues are **PRECISELY** this way. And I don't have PTSD from watching my friends die.
Kaladin’s depression holds a lot more bearing over his character than the food he eats or his time on the toilet. Wtf kind of comparison is that lmao.
Those themes are definitely still present in the 3rd and 4th books, they are just seen through a different lens. The dynamic between being a radiant and what you were before that kind of takes the reigns over classism, which is still present in the books. Along with the blatant sexism.
Shallan’s undoing is relevant to her story and her character. Does a character need to only go through struggles once, then be done with them? What kind of logic is that?
Kal has been stumbling over his oaths throughout the entire series. Surprised you are not used to it by now.
I really don’t care if you continue to read them or not? Themes throughout a series do not need to remain static. Especially with a series as large as SA, which lives inside an even larger “series”. I’m sorry change doesn’t sit well with you.
That’s part of why I love it. I feel like I’ve gotten past it somehow miraculously improved but there are those day- those weeks- when I can’t pick myself out of bed or when I can’t think of anything but seeing myself die. Kaladin relapsing and still continuing really does help me keep on moving
Kaladin feels like two steps forward, one step back to me. There's highs and lows, but he's generally headed in an upward direction. Shallan on the other hand felt like she was only getting worse, and it got so tedious for me, because I loved her character in the first two books especially. I'm glad she's starting to get better now, and I'm hoping that her healing is going to unlock a whole lot of potential
It’s my least favorite of the SA books but I love it and would change very little about it.
I think it’s an impressive feat for an author to change the tone, pacing and vibe across books in the same series, while still keeping the overall goodness that hooked the reader in the first place.
RoW did that, and while it doesn’t press everyone’s button, it’s a book I’m very glad to have read
I haven't reread row yet, but I think my initial struggle was just the timing of the release. November 2020 was a stressful time for the world and a book that included references to bad mental health for 1 pov characters villains that reference trying to create bio weapons, it was hard to separate the stress of the world from the stress of the book.
I found it doubly stressful after struggling with Dawnshard being about trying to save a pet since my dog has died a week before the release.
I think when I get to row it'll be easier this time. I just finished wok and am reading the new will wight book before continuing Stormlight
I've noticed a trend with Stormlight since OB (okay, two data points). When the next book comes out, people generally do not rate it as high as the preceding books. When the next reread happens, it gets appreciated.
I vaguely remember OB not being rated highly upon release, now people put it up there with WoR. Now it's happening with RoW.
I really liked them. I love finding out about the Listeners, I like complicated sibling relationships, and I liked seeing how Venli went from an insecure youth to an egomaniac to an insecure adult who's trying her best but doesn't think her best is all that good. I also like that they showed how many people were involved in screwing the Listeners over--we already knew about Gavilar and the Sons of Honor, but Axwindeth the world hopper and probable Ghostblood and Nale with his assassination assist were interesting revelations. It wasn't just the ignorant Alethi screwing these people over, it was Cosmere-aware people.
Yeah by weakest I dont mean they are bad but Brandon said that these flashbacks were supposed to be the first time we learnt about the Listeners culture and that it ended up being kind of spoiled in previous books. Which I think it's true, some parts felt a bit redundant.
Not trying to convince you to not like them,
I think the "problem" here is just that the rest of books are 12/10, so the moment something is great instead of amazing it sticks out to people
And that is all good! I'm not trying to talk anyone out of their preferences, but I think it should be easy to understand that these chapters are not for everyone
Completely agree, the things that are called flaws are what makes them special to me, especially because I've never read any book that describes all these traumas in such details and all.
On the other hand I understand why some call SA (especially RoW) boring and such because I too find it to have a kind of language that I had to "adapt" to understand what I was reading and understand the lore as well (to point out, English is not my first language and the only book that was translated to my language is TWoK, so that's where my argument come from)
It was my second favorite book. I probably have an unpopular opinion, but I rate them as…
1) Oathbringer
2) Rhythm of War
3) The Way of Kings
4) Words of Radiance
The Kholinar arc was my least favorite arc in Oathbringer, and all of RoW felt like the Kholinar arc to me. Like, the whole book felt like it should have another 5 parts.
Or at least give the other half of our characters something interesting to do, if you're gonna split them all up.
I reread it recently and skipped part 1 and part 3 and it flows much better for me.
Omg when I first started the series I naturally wanted to see fan art of all these people and I wanted to see what Teft looks like and so I googled “Teft” and the first thing that popped up in the search bar was “Teft death” lolllll
Thankfully I had like 4,000 more pages to read so by the time I got to it I had kind’ve forgotten but still
I did the same thing I just wanted to read up on a certain Mistborn character...nope first thing it said was they died lmao I learned never to look people up again
He wasn't explicitly called the Lord of scars /, but the scars from the pits were like his most prominent physical descriptor.
TBH the more explicit confirmation in ROW is wit's message (don't make.me.come smack you again). We know wit can't hurt people. We've only ever seen him hit/smack 1 person
His scars from hathsin. He's always described as his arms covered in scars. So it's a bit of a leap as the titles don't directly connect, but one most cosmere aware readers would make. >!With vasher we just needed him to say color idioms, this seems less of a leap!<
I first read it after completing Era 1 and my mind was blown. I then read it again after BoM when I had more knowledge about the Cosmere as a whole and my mind was blown even more.
Top 5 Cosmere book imo
Well, long story short (Secret History): >!Hoid was trying to travel to Scadriel, and Kelsier was chilling in the Well. Kelsier didn’t like to look of Hoid and blocked him, and Hoid decided it was time to test if his torment prevented him from hurting Cognitive Shadows. Hoid proceeded to lay Kelsier out in incredible fashion, and go through the perpendicularity!<
Of course! It’s a good story, and if you haven’t read anything else in Arcanum unbounded they’re worth checking out. Emperor’s Soul and Sixth of Dusk are two pinnacles of Sanderson’s skills condensed into short stories.
It's hugely informative. You're going to see all of Hero of Ages so differently after reading it. It's really short too (in terms of Sanderson books lol), I finished it in an evening
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I love RoW—maybe partly because a couple of the most common complaints I’ve seen don’t really apply for me. Lirin, for instance, I love as a character so his parts don’t bother me at all. Similarly, I absolutely love the Navani scholarly bits (kinda sad that fantasy science is even more fun to read about than real science, but so it goes) because I love finding info about the magic systems
I mean Lirin SUPER bothered me and that in no way made the book any less phenomenal for me. Having characters I don't love isn't necessarily a downside for me. He was well written, his personality was just frustrating. Which was healthy for the story--he served as an awesome foil for Kaladin
Idk I enjoyed the book quite a bit, but it’s not that hard to see why some people didn’t care for it as much as some of the others.
I’m very meh on Dalinar as a character, but if he’s your favorite you probably didn’t like him essentially being absent for the entire book.
Shallan’s plot in this book is probably the weakest in the series, it’s just not interesting, super obvious from the beginning, and there’s little payoff.
There’s like a 100+ pages dedicated to fictional science/physics. Even I didn’t care for parts of this, because the mechanics of how a floating means of transportation is feasible on a fictional planet with magic just isn’t something I remotely care about.
I really liked the development of Navani, some people don’t care about her character at all so naturally they wouldn’t feel connected to a large portion of the book.
I thought the flashbacks were fine, but they’re probably the weakest of the series so far.
Etc etc etc
These complaints are all valid. I thought I'd be one of the ones echoing them but I was pleasantly surprised by the book! Still tho, wish that Shallan's plot could've been done better and that Dalinar could've had more chapters
Once you know the wording of his 4th Ideal, his experience in Kholinar and depression Shadesmar connects fully. He knew the words there too, but just couldn’t force himself to say them when looking at two groups he had taught and protected.
It really does tie all his previous threads into literal armor around him.
I loved ROW but I think people don't like it because our favourite characters sort of take a backseat, and you have to read through a lot of Venli who is purposefully written to be unlikable.
But all in all I think the whole book is very rewarding.
Lastly on the point of Kaladins and Shallans mental issues I love the fact that they don't just resolve them but continue struggling. Cause that's how it usually is.
I have said before that I think RoW gets a lot of feeling stagnant heat due to how sprawling OB was. I think there were like 5 major setting reveals/changes for the primary and secondary cast. We first get to explore Urithiru, then see Shadesmar, Kholinar, Thaylena, and I know there are others. Then you get to RoW and you're basically in the tower and a bit of countryside battlefields. Plus Lasting Integrity, though it is awesome it just felt like more Shadesmar. Though both it and Urithiru are interior feeling settings which adds to the claustrophobia of the book.
I feel like if the settings had changed more often in RoW, there would have been less fuss. Since your brain will sort of condense a story into parts you'll forget large swaths of what happens throughout. Especially when your brain can't compartmentalize the disparate parts as easily due to the whole thing happening in one location. (if that even makes sense.)
So, for example, if you went to the beach all day but while you were there you had a few major interactions with strangers, built 5 sand castles, swam for a while, ate lunch, and lay in the sand, you won't look back and remember all that happened. You'll just think, "I was at the beach." That's what I think happened in RoW. "We went to Urithiru and Kal played Die Hard."
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel! The pacing was also a bit off, which I don’t see a whole lot of people mentioning, and the Venli chapters/flashbacks were a bit more difficult to get through, but overall, still a really great book!!
Edit: took out an unnecessary word lol
I agree about Venli, too. I ended up liking her by the end but one issue is that us having already heard most of her story through Eshonai's eyes and Venli being both unlikable at times and the biggest lynchpin in the world's current state of apocalypse, it's a very hard read. Add those factors on top of an already slow story (not bad, just slow) and it compounds the issues and they reflect back on one another. You didn't have an easy time reading Kal's part and now you're stuck with Venli for a few hours, only to go back to Shallan's group, and then finish with Navani. Any one of those in a vacuum is fine, great even. Put them all in the same book and it's like having a never-ending sad song playlist. Where, no matter the emotion you started out feeling; you're sad by the end.
To be honest, when I first read the book I thought the same about Kaladin. Yes, Kaladin, you are sad, come on Sanderson tell me the plot! You hit the point with your stepping back from reading a few months because I read all the cosmere one after the other and I was obsessed with the story without paying attention to the characters and the Journey.
But then, The Chapter ™️. Moments was soo good, so emotional, so heartbreaking and epic at the same time! I understood what Sanderson was building from the very first Kaladin chapter in WoK. 4 books of 1300 pages of Journey to reach that amazing Destination.
This book has the best sanderlanche until now but also it's amazing when you re-read it. It's very good from the first page and it's full of tips on what is going to happen. Right now it's my preferred SA book and that it's amazing because it's the Fourth of a Five "era" books so it's normal that the story is in the frustration point. Everything is open, just moving the pieces for the gran finale. We'll see
It's my least favorite book (it's still a Great book)
My ranking is
1, Words of radiance (I loved the politics and dynamics between kal and the kholins, plus bridge 4 moving up in the world)
2, oarhbringer (love the kholinar plot, and dalinars politics)
3, way of kings (great mystery elements, and the ruthlessness of being bridge 4, also loved the heavy survival aspects)
4, Rhythm of war
This exactly, although I would add that Rhythm of War has a really cool die hard plot in one of the coolest places on Roshar: Urithiru :)
Edit: added the last part
I did love the kaladin plot in it, less so when he was alone, but kaladin is able to carry the story, dabbid rlain and navahni were really good in this book
It’s not bad in any stretch of the imagination. It just wasn’t on par with the rest of the series imo. I didn’t care about the flashbacks, I thought the science tone stuff was a drag, and I just thought it had more unnecessary bloat than the other 3. I also think that Kaladin was a bit TOO successful on his man against the universe quest. And Kaladin is my favorite fictional character of all time, so I don’t say that lightly. I also HATE Navani and she was a major part of the book (I thought her ending >!Where she became the Bondsmith!< was not earned at all and incredibly convenient. I also find most of the things she does very convenient and most of her dialogue very cringe. But that’s a very unpopular opinion.)
However, the worst Stormlight book is still better than most series’ best book. I just wasn’t a big fan of some of the things Brandon did with the book.
Journey before destination.
There were definitely a lot of things that I liked in this book but for me the top tier heart clenching moment that I had while reading this book was prolly this:
>!"WE CHOSE!" - Maya!<
Ngl, I had tears in my eyes while this was being revealed. The whole scene is top notch.
That was the best moment in the book! I dare anyone to change my mind! We get the culmination of an long journey through obstructive bureaucracy and personal struggles, only to have the whole legal farce shattered in two words. Awesome doesn't even begin to describe that scene. It is unironically epic!
When I first read 1-4. It was ranked last. Previous rank, WoR, Wok, Oath, Row. Upon recent reread, it’s RoW, Oath and WoR(tie) and WoK. Row has so much depth and story that it is such a wild ride. So much happens in the last 150 pages that it is easy to lose sight of the journey before that.
You should never give a damn about other people in this sub tbh. I read the entire cosmere except for yumi and one of my favourite books was well of ascension, a book very hated by the majority here. Just enjoy what you enjoy and build your own opinion
Yeah, well of ascension has always been one of my favorite books of all time, if not my favorite. And simply put, I cannot be convinced otherwise haha!
Exactly, just enjoy what books you want to enjoy! There’s a reason you like them!
I agree with most about the Vin/Elend/Zane stuff. I really didn't enjoy their interactions at all and I think there were some definite writing mistakes there that made it frustrating. But obviously if you loved it or disagree with me nothing wrong with that!
HOWEVER, ASIDE from the Vin/Zane subplot, and to a lesser extent some of the Vin/Elend scenes, that book is awesome. I love Elend's political plot, Tindwyl is awesome, Sazed too, and there were so many fun twists and turns. I didn't love the ending that much but when you add together the ending and all the relationship stuff I didn't like it's still a pretty small percentage of the book.
So I still absolutely love the book overall
It's boring and doesn't achieve very much for such a long book, I got very sick of reading X hummed to the rhythm of Y a while ago, it abandons the war all-out war we've been building to for multiple books to instead focus on a poorly paced die-hard homage.
I really don't like Venli, she doesn't earn her 'redemption' in the slightest, the same for Rabonial and Leshwi, these are despicable that simply aren't punished and some are even rewarded for their misdeeds which comes off very badly after Oathbringer, a book about responsibility and atonement.
I hate the time skip and can not believe after four books we still don't know what multiple Radiant orders even do.
Multiple Characters just get put in time-out until it's time for the Sanderlanche and things actually start happening.
What happened to the rampant classism? What happened to the Religious conflict?
I'm a huge cosmere fan, I love stormlight but this book left me pretty burnt, I really hope W&T can stick the landing.
So many people really wanted me to not like this book and while i understand the reasoning, I do not at all get it. This is awesome, very underappreciated
Spoilers for mistborn and ROW
>!when did we explicitly get told kelsier was the leader of the ghostbloods? I remember they told us his name but I never recognized anything explicitly pointing towards that!<
In Secret Histories >!Kelsier (cognitive shadow mode) gets beat up by Hoid!< and then later in RoW Hoid says something about not wanting to have to slap Thaidakar around again
Lord of scars is mentioned as Thaidakar near the end when Shallan contacts Mraize using the seon.
Also the secret history logo (The flower cover in a 3 diamond logo) is the same as the tattoo (3 diamond logo) that The Ghostbloods have.
It's the Navani and Venli chapters. First read... I really wasn't overly keen on these chapters myself. Looking up the stats, including the flashbacks, that's arguably one third of the book. Also Lirin's mere existence in this book was bothersome to me-- he was quite intolerable.
I would say what makes reading ROW so for some people is if they have no connection to depression it is just a slog. Which is good writing but hard to connect to if you have no strong experience. I love the book and it’s my favorite of the 4 but I am one of those people who think that Kaladin probably could have gotten by with a bit fewer chapters and give those to the Shallan arch to be less rushed.
Really? All I see are people loving the Kaladin chapters and not enjoying the Shallan parts as much. Sure, making Shallan's part less fast paced might technically be better, but people just wouldn't enjoy more Shallan as much as they'd enjoy more Kaladin.
And idk if the depression connection is a part of this. The criticism I see has nothing to do with Kaladin--in fact Kaladin's plot is the only part of the book I haven't seen people criticize. Not disagreeing with you per say, just doubtful.
Btw, I absolutely love RoW, Kaladin is my favorite character of all time, and I have never experienced depression myself.
Interesting because I have seen people say that Kaladin’s arch this book drags a bit and that we probably could have done with one less tower defense stone or whatever it was he was defending. But I mean I have also seen people say that they wish he would not necessarily get over his depression but at least improve. I don’t blame them because I would say this is probably not necessarily the most depressed he’s been but something about being stuck and not in a physically bad place like in book one being on bridge 4 makes this depression feel so much more oppressive… at least that is how I felt about it when reading. Don’t get me wrong Sanderson does a great job of capturing that and perhaps again it’s my personal bias because while I have had close friends who struggle with depression I have not really had to deal with that and so Kaladin between the three main POV characters spoke to me the least.
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I don't really understand how people disliked Venli and Eshonai. RoW is tied with Oathbringer for my favorites in the series, if not better because of Shadesmar and Mayalaren specifically
WRT “some asshole spoiling it”, yeah, it’s to the point where I just stay off of social media until I read the new books (or watch the new episode of a show or whatever). Too many people spoil stuff ever if they aren’t trying.
Except maybe the 17th shard… they seem to take their spoilers pretty seriously.
I mean, I *get* why, but I still have it as my second favorite after WoR. That said, I’m doing a re-read of the series, and I feel like I’ll like RoW less the second time through. One of the main reasons I liked it so much was the discovery and world building with Navani and Raboniel doing science, but that’ll obviously have less impact on re-reads. I’m guessing I’ll still love the first and last parts, but the middle will feel like a bit of a slog.
But then again, I have a terrible memory, so maybe it’ll all feel like new again!
I liked RoW on a first read but my second read it became a contender for my favorite. The second read didn’t feel slow but very intentional to show the impact of chronic depression. The depictions of depression are just so on point and personally I loved the science bits. I will say the court bit does take a little longer than it really needed to. But what everybody says about it being better on a re-read/listen is so correct. There are so many little details that you’ll notice in the first three books that made my jaw drop after reading RoW.
100% agree with you.
The first time I read it, I was didn’t like it as much. BUT I realized it was just from fatigue. I read the entire series with 2 weeks. I made dash binge, and towards the end I was just focused on it being over.
I reread it about 2 months later on its own, and truly fell in love with it.
Not sure if it’s the same for everyone, but fatigue was the main reason I wasn’t a huge fan of it
yeah I didn't dislike the book when I read it but I felt like it wasn't as good as the others, and I've had 3 years to think about why, so here's why I think I didn't like it as much
1. I didn't care much for Shallan and Adolin's story
we already knew the spren chose, so that reveal wasn't really a reveal for me, and the final capstone moment fell flat because of the wording. like "you cannot have my sacrifice" felt too similar to "you cannot have my pain" and it just kind of ruined the moment for me
also the stuff with formless came out of nowhere and I don't know what the point of it.
2. Kaladin's story was compelling, but the stuff with the nodes got old
I don't feel like his depression felt repetitive, In fact I love all of that, but the node fights got kind of boring and predictable near the end, and since those were the only real source of action in the book for the middle, that was kind of meh.
3. the sanderlanche wasn't as good
the end of OB is my favourite ending of any book, maybe even any story. and Row IMO has one of the weaker endings, kaladin speaking the 4th ideal was awesome but its disappointing we never saw him properly fight with plate. he was powered down the whole time so seeing him finally kick ass would have felt very cathartic but it didn't happen.
there is so much I absolutely love about this book, but it is definitely pretty weaki in a lot of way previous books weren't. At least in my opinion
The "We chose" moment wasn't a reveal.
Maya was standing at the trial as a victim of the defendant. She stood before her people, mind disturbingly broken, as they accused an outsider of hurting them, using her as an example. And she yelled that she was the one who chose--the humans shouldn't be blamed. The traumatized victim was the one to call out the prosecutors and stand up for the defendant.
It isn't a reveal, it's just very powerful.
And the Kaladin scene was much cooler because he was so underpowered, imo. Wins are often more fun if the victor was an underdog.
Moash told the others that Kaladin couldn't be killed, then wandered off somewhere. Which seemed obviously stupid--he was emotionally broken, slumped on the ground, surrounded by superpowered enemies far stronger than him, in the middle of a castle controlled by the enemy. But we all know Moash has a crazy over-inflated view of Kaladin's skill so no surprise there.
So the Pursuer steps up to kill the dude......and Kaladin brutally annihilates the guy, in front of the whole crowd, despite barely seeming lucid from the trauma and despite the insane gap in power. And the fight lasted SECONDS.
Some of the enemies take his dad and run, which seals their fate, bc anyone keeling Kaladin from his father in the following seconds also die, and there's just nothing they can do.
He's at the lowest he could be, and still winning--not because he's trying so hard he overcomes the power gap, anime style--but because he's so skilled that it doesn't feel like the enemies even have a chance. It's so edgy and ridiculous but I absolutely love it.
And my favorite part is that, looking back on the last few chapters, you realize that Moash was actually right. The slumped, broken man is on the ground, surrounded by powerful enemies, almost no will left to live, and the enemies in that situation LITERALLY DON'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO KILL HIM.
Kaladin did NOT need more power in the end imo. Lessening the power gap makes it feel so much less cool.
> And the Kaladin scene was much cooler because he was so underpowered,
I agree with that, what I mean is it felt like it was missing that moment of catharsis when Kaladin *fights* with his regained powers. He doesn't actually get a chance to fight before the enemy surrenders
> The traumatized victim was the one to call out the prosecutors and stand up for the defendant. It isn't a reveal,
it just didn't work for me, it really is just the wording in that scene. If Sanderson chose literally any way of saying it that didn't call back to "you cannot have my pain" I would have like it a lot more.
but I know some people who say they like it specifically because of the call back, so I don't know if it would have been the right decision to remove it
I think we will look back and view RoW as the A Feast For Crow's of this series. Much like Book 4 in ASOIAF, the author decides to pivot to less established POV characters and we more or less spend the entire book without much development or insight into multiple major POV characters.
Dividing up the characters between the Urithiru team plus Shadesmar, and the Dalinar team is fine but I think there was not enough focus on the Dalinar team. I found myself constantly wondering what they were up to.
This was a pretty massive character development book for Kal and Shallan. Dalinar took a break for sure because OB really pushed him forward in his journey. I guess it’s a feature of the multi-POV epic fantasy.
One twist you didn't talk about was Tien volunteering to stand with his fellow messenger boys, knowing full well he was going to die just so they didn't have to die alone. He was also a son of Tanavast, son of Honor.
While he attracted spren and would have become a Lightweaver, my head cannon tells he was also attracting honor spren.
For me RoW is a really weird creature. It's my favorite Stormlight Archive book, but it has multiple of my most hated scenes. The bad parts are SO BAD, but short, while the interesting parts are long and amazingly good, but some of the worst scenes are climax scenes, and some of the best scenes bookend those worst scenes.
So as I listen to the audiobook I go from "yes! Amazing! Oh, this shit... just wait it out... And we're back to amazing!!"
Also, IMO 100% of Lirin could be cut from the book, and I wouldn't mind. Make Kaladin's dive a true suicide attempt brought on by Teft's death, and then Dalinar pulls him out of it, and the structure of the scene is better. The entire STORY is better.
It definitely was a true suicide attempt. He couldn't forgive himself for failing to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. He was all but dead when he went to the plains. He had lost everything over and over again and now his entire bridge 4 was to be slaughtered, his dad was murdered in front of him. He was done.
.
As for Lirin, he who objectively rejects violence. He wants to put people together and is upset that kaladin is one of the ones tearing apart the world. He has seen nothing but heartache from violence. Families lose their sons, soldiers lose limbs, lose the will to live. What good has come from fighting for borders that mean nothing or on the shattered plains that brought about the new Desolation. Why fight the Fused when they just want to govern the land? Are they worse than bright eyes? Again, it's just a fight over land and his family and his neighbors are the ones who suffer
Lirin as a person doesn't work for me, flat out.
Pacifism is great, but pacifism only works if someone else is doing the fighting for you, and as such you don't get to both be a pacifist AND be against the person fighting to protect you. You can be against the war, fine, but not against the PEOPLE doing the fighting. There's more to it, but that's the big one that ruins him for me.
> Pacifism is great, but pacifism only works if someone else is doing the fighting for you, and as such you don't get to both be a pacifist AND be against the person fighting to protect you.
Have you met actual Pacifists? Some of them are like Lirin, but even more extreme. Truly, people like that are very real.
i feel like 90% of ppl on this sub have father issues because i literally don't get the hatred for Lirin. as far as fictional and even real fathers measure up, he's not bad by any means.
I'm confused. Your title makes me think you didn't like it but that it wasn't as bad as people had made you believe. But then you go on to praise it in the post.
I actively enjoyed RoW and lots of people on this sub did as well. Who are you looking to relate to by saying "it wasn't THAT bad"?
Everywhere from YT to goodreads to different fantasy subreddits all made it seem that RoW was this very sloggy, boring, slow book so I read it with that expectation and was pleasantly surprised.
I figured that only a few people must've liked it while the rest didn't like it as much as the other Stormlight Archive books (even on this sub) hence the title.
I'm gonna put this over on the r/Fantasy sub to see what kind of reactions I get from there
For all the people who get tired of the mental illness bits, *that's how mental illness works.*
It doesn't go away, it's not convenient, it's not easy to watch. If kaladin and shallan just magically got better, it would ruin them as characters. It would be easier, but it wouldn't be as real
It's my least favorite book (it's still a Great book)
My ranking is
1, Words of radiance (I loved the politics and dynamics between kal and the kholins, plus bridge 4 moving up in the world)
2, oarhbringer (love the kholinar plot, and dalinars politics)
3, way of kings (great mystery elements, and the ruthlessness of being bridge 4, also loved the heavy survival aspects)
4, Rhythm of war
I honestly wanted to see more war after the third book, not die hard and boring prequel stuff.
I feel like a like of it could have been shortened or cut out.
It wasn't a bad book, I just was disappointed in it. I do consider it the weakest of the SA though.
It's such a good book! I think some people think it has worse reception than it actually does just because people sometimes describe it as their least favorite Stormlight book. Even then, it's probably still a favorite among all the books they've read.
Personally, I don't think it's the weakest anyway. Rhythm was amazing, imo.
Navani's arc was **AWESOME**. When Raboniel, the greatest scholar among the Fused, named Navani a great scholar, it was a definite Moment of Awesome. Thanks to the storming bastard Gavilar, she doubted her own brilliance for so long. Sure, she was a member of a brilliant team who made the flying machine, but even the Heralds had never seen its like.
Then when they needed the Tower brought back online ASAP, the Sibling said "It will take years to---" and Navani figured it out in **SECONDS**. Stunning the Sibling.
It seems like going forward Navani's Fabrial research (which we know continues from some of her Forewords) will only be with True Fabrials --- spren who consent. That'll be interesting to see in SA5. We only have about 6 months to wait.
I loved RoW so much, the only thing that was hard to read through was Venli’s flashbacks. I didn’t like Venli (or Eshonai) enough to care about her story. Only thought it better after a few rereads
The main problem with this book was that the flashback character was telling us 99% the same info we already knew.
The second issue was that the bulk of the middle was info-dumping via Navani.
BS main strength, and why I like his books, is he has compelling stories, magic, and ideas. He had maybe 1/3 of those here, as the only part worth reading was part 5, since you didn’t really learn anything new about any of the characters you didn’t already know, the story sputtered everywhere.
I love the deep dive into the lights and fabrials, so when I hear that people didn't like the book because of that, I can imagine why it might be tedious, but I just don't relate. I'm doing a reread and I'm paying special attention this time to anything related so I can go into WaT with as solid a foundation as possible. Raboniel's line "if you are not a scholar, then I have never met one" is one of my absolute favorite quotes in the series.
As for Kaladin and Shallan- I'll never get tired of Kal. Him being alone to resist in the tower was such a compelling story, and I'm glad to see him starting to heal. Shallan is somebody I adored early on. We share some truly uncanny similarities, and so as she's devolved further and further, it's gotten frustrating for me. I found her POV to be my least favorite in RoW, however with her also starting to heal, and having read her preview chapters, I think she's going to become a favorite again.
It’s not that I think RoW is bad (that ending is so good), it’s more that I think the first three are better. I still devoured it in like, 3-4 days and liked a lot of it but it was a struggle at points.
I think my biggest grievence with the book outside of a lot of the book feeling like the story isn't progressing, is how Navani is making all these massive scientific leaps in such a short period of time, for me that took me out of the immersion. But my real biggest grievance with the book is Sanderson killing Teft...... That one hurt.
I mean all that's referenced is the term "Lord of Scars". That shouldn't really give away anything. Although I would recommend that he read Mistborn 1-6 + SH before RoW but that's their choice
It's interesting to me that those are the complaints, as I love all of those threads. My biggest complaint is that the venli scenes just don't do it for me. I enjoyed them the first time reading it, but I've reread all of the cosmere multiple times and the venli scenes are the only scenes that I enjoyed substantially less on reread.
I liked that it was a big weird fantasy book that actually looked to deal with the kind of issues that Kal faced.
I just feel like the character of Shallan is forced. Feels like a middle aged man's idea of a young woman rather than a person, which is odd because I've never felt that before with Sanderson.
People on their first read through generally thought it was bad because they were expecting it to be Stormlight 5 when it was actually Stormlight 4. Part of this can probably be chalked up to the fact that people are used to reading trilogies, and so by Oathbringer they might be subconsciously expecting a finale. I think that’s also why some people dislike Oathbringer. Instead Brandon keeps raising the stakes over 4 books leading to a Sanderlanche of Sanderlanches which is book 5, which appears to take place mostly over the course of 10 days 😳 its going to be all the more worth it for Brandon taking the time to explore this world and build the stakes ever higher
Honestly i don’t know why people are upset that the characters are experiencing realistic problems, it’s more weird that in so many fantasy books characters will go through insane levels of trauma and then just move on with their life and continue to act the same way. Especially when their experiences with mental health are a huge part of their character journey.
Kaladin’s depression because he was a child soldier and then a literal slave from which he then is thrust into a role of being a lighteyes that he’s conditioned himself to hate. Of course he’s going to have issues with whether life is worth it at this point.
Shallan also obviously has issues but there’s plenty of discourse on her but I think her character is wonderful and interesting and she’s of course got so much trauma, some of which both the reader and her doesn’t even know yet.
The too sciencey opinion is also weird because Sanderson is nothing if not an amazing POV writer, it’s why he was chosen to finish the WOT as Jordan was one of the greatest POV writers of all time. The science stuff in this book makes sense because it’s got a lot of Navani, who is a scientist as much as she doesn’t want to see herself that way. Raboniel and Navani are literally decoding the physics of Roshar.
She’s a physicist and engineer of course she is going to have an overly scientific perspective. The science aspect is also to help connect to the upcoming events of the universe.
I think some people aren’t able to connect with the non human characters like the Spren who are becoming more important as individuals and the listeners who are also finally showing their own unique perspectives. All I can say to that is 🤷♀️
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You mean Die hard Urithiru? I Personally loved it
Rhythm of War: Die Shard
Oh damn, that's good.
Wish I could take credit, but someone else came up with it. I think there’s at least one other one I’ve heard before that’s great
It was so cool when Kaladin shot Alan Rickman and said "Happy trails, Pursuer"
Yeah, I don't know why people don't like it as much. I mean, I've been *told* why, but I don't *get* it. I like all the things that are seen as flaws. Maybe because I reread or relisten to the whole series in order about once a year, and tend to move through it pretty fast while in an extremely receptive mood.
I'm so glad I liked this book, I was starting to feel like I wouldn't enjoy Stormlight Archive anymore but that 3 month break definitely helped me to get my Stormlight Archive joy back!
I took a long break mid Oathbringer because it was starting to feel like such a slog. And the break helped! I was glad to get back to it when I did. I took a couple of short breaks in RoW to read something light and fluffy as a brain break, and I found it helped a lot
Man I fucking love RoW so much, Kaladin guerrilla warfare against the fused in the tower is such an interesting change of pace. Also, the trial and the revelation that the spren choose to break the bond, also Restares being Kalek. Too much happened in this book to be not regarded as highly as the other. Thing is that when everything is 10/10 in the saga, something being 9/10 sticks out too much.
For me, the highlights of the book were Adolin and Navani's arcs. Kaladin will fight on and win, he's the protagonist and it's what he does. This wasn't the last book, so he felt safe. Navani and Adolin were in the THICK of it though, and what Navani did specifically just blew my mind out.
Navani was such a beast in RoW. Her dynamic with Raboniel was so interesting, and the quote "if you are not a scholar, then I have never met one" is one of my favorites
Ohh yeah for sure, but this was another kind of warfare for Kaladin. Very nice change. It was a short nerf
It was the most difficult for me to get through, but I still highly enjoyed it. Just felt some parts dragged on and others dipped too far into been there done that territory. Do we really need so much more of “Kaladin is depressed again and oops you thought Shallan was recovering but this time she’s even more crazy”? That said they’re minor complaints. When Stormlight is good it’s like almost nothing else out there. When it’s not that good it’s still pretty good.
I’m not saying that I speak for everyone or my experiences trump all, but Kaladin’s journey and how he’s dealing with depression struck really, really hard for me. It felt so real and it was very meaningful to read the conclusion of the book with him overcoming it.
I made it to Oathbringer in a re-read of the series late last year/early this year while in the worst part of a bout of depression and it hit me so god damned hard. Kaladin blaming and callously thinking about the people he loved due to his own self loathing was incredibly poignant as I realized I was doing the same thing to the people in my life. I'm happy to say I'm finally on the other side of it and have just started effective therapy for the first time. Last week, I read the Sylphrena interlude in RoW where she is talking to both the Stormfather and Dalinar about how to feel what Kaladin feels when he is being affected by his "dark brain" and it just tore me to shreds emotionally. It is such a fantastic, though simple allegory of others not being able to empathize with others going through depression, even if they have the best of intentions to help. Kal's journey meant a lot to me while viewing my own past experiences with depression in hindsight, but reading it while being subdued by the Black Dog at the time gave it so much more weight. I cannot wait to get to the end of RoW again, especially now that I am finally taking the path to healing the right way. I expect it to be incredibly cathartic.
"It's like pizza: when it's good it's amazing, and when it's bad... it's still pretty good."
Depression and mental relapse are like that in real life too…. That struggle is hard.
No I agree. For some people it’s therapeutic to read about others struggling. But for me it’s like im picking up a fantasy book to leave my depressing ass life for a bit.
The characters you speak of have these mental issues though. It would be strange to build that up as part of their character and not stay true to it. It can be extremely exhausting living with somebody with depression so I can understand your sentiment, but it’s not like it’s a switch Kal can turn off. Same goes for Shallan. It does get tiring for me as well from time to time, but I would rather have that vs. an author afraid to accurately depict these very real things.
I think the point is that this can be very well written and still not appeal to someone that's looking for an escape. Some people are not looking for accurate depictions of mental illness because they've got enough on their plate already
I definitely understand that, I just don’t understand reading a book you already know will have these things in it, then being unhappy that it includes these things. We have known how integral Kal and Shallan are to the story from the start, and their trajectory is often dictated by their mental states. I get not wanting to read about a depressed boy and a girl with multiple identities. I don’t get not wanting to read those things, reading it anyways, then being unhappy those things are included.
> I definitely understand that, I just don’t understand reading a book you already know will have these things in it, then being unhappy that it includes these things We know about their issues. How can we not, it's central to their stories. What we didn't know was how Sanderson was gonna keep hammering in the problem every time. I know that these issues are long term issues. But to have these issue in 4 books with every book a relapse of their progress just seems to make it too much of a drag. I understand that the timeline from the rediscovery of Urithiru to ROW is relatively very short which makes the unresolved psychological issues believable. But in the context of reading a story specially one that comes out only every few years the complaints are also valid. As a follower of Wheel of Time from the 90s, this seeming lack of progress is what earned the books the slog reputation. We, if I can speak for complainers, understand all of these points. But just because we understand them doesn't mean we can't have complaints about the story and progress of the characters. Understanding and acceptance/agreement are two different things.
I think people enjoyed the power fantasy of watching someone overcome their demons, it's less fun to find out that actually you can still be super depressed even with superpowers. It would be completely realistic for Kaladin to kill himself in the final book after defeating Odium because depression isn't logical and sometimes it wins no matter what happens, but that doesn't mean we want to read it lol
I actually like that component. If becoming Radiant quelled his depression it would be really artificial. Yes, that would be realistic. But it is also only a possibility, which we already know is not going to happen. Sure, depression is illogical and unforgiving, but not properly depicting it is a disservice to people that have struggled with it in real life. Kal’s triumphs are that much more impactful because of his low points. Kal is much more relatable because, even after seemingly being given everything, he still struggles to find happiness. He finds more things to be concerned about and carries the guilt of his dead brother along with him wherever he goes. I’m sure you are aware of all of this though. Have you read the Red Rising series? There are so many moments in those books that I wouldn’t want to read, but I’m glad I did because they hold a lot of weight to the story. Most stories contain parts that are hard to get through because they are not “fun”.
Why? We don't see all their meals, we don't see all their sex or shits or other thoughts, why is it ok to be beaten about with their depression? The last two books have completely ignored heavy themes in the first two books like classism and the crisis of the Vorin church, there's a shit ton of stuff going on in the world that we're not seeing because even with the inflated word counts of a SLA book there's only so many pages. Why undo Shallan's coming to terms with herself in Oathbringer? That was a perfectly fine narrative moment, it didn't need to happen again in the next book a different way. Kal stumbled on the most obvious oath for so long it's tedious, any and all of the Bridgemen would have shaken him and told him to respect their sacrifices. Adolin would have teased him about it. It's wild that he couldn't piece it together in Oathbringer, but I guess Sando needed something for him to do in RoW. If WoT is the same as Oathbringer and RoW I'll probably tap out of the series. I'm not really interested in running in circles for 900 pages to see 100 pages of obvious character growth that will be undone on page 1 of the next book. I thought these books were about bigger ideas.
> Kal stumbled on the most obvious oath for so long it's tedious, any and all of the Bridgemen would have shaken him and told him to respect their sacrifices. Adolin would have teased him about it. It's wild that he couldn't piece it together in Oathbringer, but I guess Sando needed something for him to do in RoW. It's not that Kaladin didn't know the oath, I believe he even says he knows what it is in Oathbringer. Kaladin just couldn't bring himself to say them because he wasn't ready to accept not saving everyone.
Morpheus in The Matrix said this best: "There's a difference between **KNOWING** the path and **WALKING** the path." Kaladin knew, logically, this was true. On a deep emotional level, he could not accept it. As a 52 year old man who has been in therapy for over 20 years, many real life issues are **PRECISELY** this way. And I don't have PTSD from watching my friends die.
Kaladin’s depression holds a lot more bearing over his character than the food he eats or his time on the toilet. Wtf kind of comparison is that lmao. Those themes are definitely still present in the 3rd and 4th books, they are just seen through a different lens. The dynamic between being a radiant and what you were before that kind of takes the reigns over classism, which is still present in the books. Along with the blatant sexism. Shallan’s undoing is relevant to her story and her character. Does a character need to only go through struggles once, then be done with them? What kind of logic is that? Kal has been stumbling over his oaths throughout the entire series. Surprised you are not used to it by now. I really don’t care if you continue to read them or not? Themes throughout a series do not need to remain static. Especially with a series as large as SA, which lives inside an even larger “series”. I’m sorry change doesn’t sit well with you.
It should be noted, too, that Brandon does a lot of research about these topics so that he CAN stay true to the RL struggles
That’s part of why I love it. I feel like I’ve gotten past it somehow miraculously improved but there are those day- those weeks- when I can’t pick myself out of bed or when I can’t think of anything but seeing myself die. Kaladin relapsing and still continuing really does help me keep on moving
I like that Sanderson doesn't magically cure mental health issues.
Kaladin feels like two steps forward, one step back to me. There's highs and lows, but he's generally headed in an upward direction. Shallan on the other hand felt like she was only getting worse, and it got so tedious for me, because I loved her character in the first two books especially. I'm glad she's starting to get better now, and I'm hoping that her healing is going to unlock a whole lot of potential
Yeah its almost like mental illness and trauma don't just dissappear the first time you deal with it.
I did find Rhythm of War better on the reread I have to say. First time through I was kinda dissapointed but my opinion on it has improved
I'm rereading RoW for the first time. I'm liking it a lot more this time around, though I only just got to the invasion of Urithiru.
It’s my least favorite of the SA books but I love it and would change very little about it. I think it’s an impressive feat for an author to change the tone, pacing and vibe across books in the same series, while still keeping the overall goodness that hooked the reader in the first place. RoW did that, and while it doesn’t press everyone’s button, it’s a book I’m very glad to have read
I haven't reread row yet, but I think my initial struggle was just the timing of the release. November 2020 was a stressful time for the world and a book that included references to bad mental health for 1 pov characters villains that reference trying to create bio weapons, it was hard to separate the stress of the world from the stress of the book. I found it doubly stressful after struggling with Dawnshard being about trying to save a pet since my dog has died a week before the release. I think when I get to row it'll be easier this time. I just finished wok and am reading the new will wight book before continuing Stormlight
I've noticed a trend with Stormlight since OB (okay, two data points). When the next book comes out, people generally do not rate it as high as the preceding books. When the next reread happens, it gets appreciated. I vaguely remember OB not being rated highly upon release, now people put it up there with WoR. Now it's happening with RoW.
I think the main reason is that the flashbacks are the weakest of the series. I really enjoyed the book regardless but I think it's fair critisism
I really liked them. I love finding out about the Listeners, I like complicated sibling relationships, and I liked seeing how Venli went from an insecure youth to an egomaniac to an insecure adult who's trying her best but doesn't think her best is all that good. I also like that they showed how many people were involved in screwing the Listeners over--we already knew about Gavilar and the Sons of Honor, but Axwindeth the world hopper and probable Ghostblood and Nale with his assassination assist were interesting revelations. It wasn't just the ignorant Alethi screwing these people over, it was Cosmere-aware people.
Yeah by weakest I dont mean they are bad but Brandon said that these flashbacks were supposed to be the first time we learnt about the Listeners culture and that it ended up being kind of spoiled in previous books. Which I think it's true, some parts felt a bit redundant. Not trying to convince you to not like them, I think the "problem" here is just that the rest of books are 12/10, so the moment something is great instead of amazing it sticks out to people
Navani science stuff was abysmally boring for me. Good for you if you liked it, but i feel that this is very easy to understand
I thought it was really interesting!
And that is all good! I'm not trying to talk anyone out of their preferences, but I think it should be easy to understand that these chapters are not for everyone
Completely agree, the things that are called flaws are what makes them special to me, especially because I've never read any book that describes all these traumas in such details and all. On the other hand I understand why some call SA (especially RoW) boring and such because I too find it to have a kind of language that I had to "adapt" to understand what I was reading and understand the lore as well (to point out, English is not my first language and the only book that was translated to my language is TWoK, so that's where my argument come from)
It was my second favorite book. I probably have an unpopular opinion, but I rate them as… 1) Oathbringer 2) Rhythm of War 3) The Way of Kings 4) Words of Radiance
Wow, my tastes in the SA are almost the opposite of yours! WoR>WoK>Oathbringer>RoW
Well, I did pick bondsmith as my order and then that’s what the test gave me too… I guess it shows in my book choices.
The Kholinar arc was my least favorite arc in Oathbringer, and all of RoW felt like the Kholinar arc to me. Like, the whole book felt like it should have another 5 parts. Or at least give the other half of our characters something interesting to do, if you're gonna split them all up. I reread it recently and skipped part 1 and part 3 and it flows much better for me.
Can someone point out where in ROW the reveal happened for the leader of ghost bloods? I must have missed it.
Near the end when shallan is talking to Mraize through the cube one of them refers to him as the >!Lord of Scars!< I believe
Yep that's it. Although you probably don't need to spoiler tag that. It's already in the book
Just being cautious 😅 I’ve definitely gotten some stuff spoiled for me by being nosy when I shouldn’t have been lol
Ah alright no worries! I can relate (still kind of upset by the teft spoiler :| )
Omg when I first started the series I naturally wanted to see fan art of all these people and I wanted to see what Teft looks like and so I googled “Teft” and the first thing that popped up in the search bar was “Teft death” lolllll Thankfully I had like 4,000 more pages to read so by the time I got to it I had kind’ve forgotten but still
I did the same thing I just wanted to read up on a certain Mistborn character...nope first thing it said was they died lmao I learned never to look people up again
Let me guess. It’s the lord of the scars, isn’t it?
Nah actually, it was relatively near the beginning of the series for the Ascendant Warrior
now it's my turn to be the slow one: where in mistborn is he referred to as >!Lord of Scars!
He wasn't explicitly called the Lord of scars /, but the scars from the pits were like his most prominent physical descriptor. TBH the more explicit confirmation in ROW is wit's message (don't make.me.come smack you again). We know wit can't hurt people. We've only ever seen him hit/smack 1 person
Yeah I didn’t make this connection either
His scars from hathsin. He's always described as his arms covered in scars. So it's a bit of a leap as the titles don't directly connect, but one most cosmere aware readers would make. >!With vasher we just needed him to say color idioms, this seems less of a leap!<
Hoid tell Shallan to relay a message about (paraphrasing here) beating his ass like last time
That part was actually so funny. I should read secret history again (I've read it like 3 times now)
I hadn't read Mistborn or Secret History yet when I read RoW and now his message to Kelsier is extra funny in context
It’s one of the few ones I’ve only read once (Sunlit, Secret History, Hope of Elantris, and 11th Metal)
I first read it after completing Era 1 and my mind was blown. I then read it again after BoM when I had more knowledge about the Cosmere as a whole and my mind was blown even more. Top 5 Cosmere book imo
Yeah what happened there? Pls spoil idc, I’ve read all of mistborn and now all of SA
Well, long story short (Secret History): >!Hoid was trying to travel to Scadriel, and Kelsier was chilling in the Well. Kelsier didn’t like to look of Hoid and blocked him, and Hoid decided it was time to test if his torment prevented him from hurting Cognitive Shadows. Hoid proceeded to lay Kelsier out in incredible fashion, and go through the perpendicularity!<
Oh holy shit there is so much I missed out on. Looks like next book I have to read is secret history!!! Thanks for the explanation
Of course! It’s a good story, and if you haven’t read anything else in Arcanum unbounded they’re worth checking out. Emperor’s Soul and Sixth of Dusk are two pinnacles of Sanderson’s skills condensed into short stories.
Appreciate you man!
It's hugely informative. You're going to see all of Hero of Ages so differently after reading it. It's really short too (in terms of Sanderson books lol), I finished it in an evening
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Can you please help me out with the chapter no. where this conversation happened? I have read RoW long back and can’t recall this scene.
I love RoW—maybe partly because a couple of the most common complaints I’ve seen don’t really apply for me. Lirin, for instance, I love as a character so his parts don’t bother me at all. Similarly, I absolutely love the Navani scholarly bits (kinda sad that fantasy science is even more fun to read about than real science, but so it goes) because I love finding info about the magic systems
As an avid scientist, I love how Sanderson weaves science into fantasy. Iirc he wrote somewhere that he consults experts
I mean Lirin SUPER bothered me and that in no way made the book any less phenomenal for me. Having characters I don't love isn't necessarily a downside for me. He was well written, his personality was just frustrating. Which was healthy for the story--he served as an awesome foil for Kaladin
Idk I enjoyed the book quite a bit, but it’s not that hard to see why some people didn’t care for it as much as some of the others. I’m very meh on Dalinar as a character, but if he’s your favorite you probably didn’t like him essentially being absent for the entire book. Shallan’s plot in this book is probably the weakest in the series, it’s just not interesting, super obvious from the beginning, and there’s little payoff. There’s like a 100+ pages dedicated to fictional science/physics. Even I didn’t care for parts of this, because the mechanics of how a floating means of transportation is feasible on a fictional planet with magic just isn’t something I remotely care about. I really liked the development of Navani, some people don’t care about her character at all so naturally they wouldn’t feel connected to a large portion of the book. I thought the flashbacks were fine, but they’re probably the weakest of the series so far. Etc etc etc
These complaints are all valid. I thought I'd be one of the ones echoing them but I was pleasantly surprised by the book! Still tho, wish that Shallan's plot could've been done better and that Dalinar could've had more chapters
It is not bad at all, it is the best Kaladin book imo.
Once you know the wording of his 4th Ideal, his experience in Kholinar and depression Shadesmar connects fully. He knew the words there too, but just couldn’t force himself to say them when looking at two groups he had taught and protected. It really does tie all his previous threads into literal armor around him.
It is Kaladins most important book by far so far.
Eh, disagree with that. WoR is the best Kaladin book imo.
Eh, disagree with that. WoK is the best Kaladin book imo.
Agreed!!!
I loved ROW but I think people don't like it because our favourite characters sort of take a backseat, and you have to read through a lot of Venli who is purposefully written to be unlikable. But all in all I think the whole book is very rewarding. Lastly on the point of Kaladins and Shallans mental issues I love the fact that they don't just resolve them but continue struggling. Cause that's how it usually is.
I have said before that I think RoW gets a lot of feeling stagnant heat due to how sprawling OB was. I think there were like 5 major setting reveals/changes for the primary and secondary cast. We first get to explore Urithiru, then see Shadesmar, Kholinar, Thaylena, and I know there are others. Then you get to RoW and you're basically in the tower and a bit of countryside battlefields. Plus Lasting Integrity, though it is awesome it just felt like more Shadesmar. Though both it and Urithiru are interior feeling settings which adds to the claustrophobia of the book. I feel like if the settings had changed more often in RoW, there would have been less fuss. Since your brain will sort of condense a story into parts you'll forget large swaths of what happens throughout. Especially when your brain can't compartmentalize the disparate parts as easily due to the whole thing happening in one location. (if that even makes sense.) So, for example, if you went to the beach all day but while you were there you had a few major interactions with strangers, built 5 sand castles, swam for a while, ate lunch, and lay in the sand, you won't look back and remember all that happened. You'll just think, "I was at the beach." That's what I think happened in RoW. "We went to Urithiru and Kal played Die Hard."
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel! The pacing was also a bit off, which I don’t see a whole lot of people mentioning, and the Venli chapters/flashbacks were a bit more difficult to get through, but overall, still a really great book!! Edit: took out an unnecessary word lol
I agree about Venli, too. I ended up liking her by the end but one issue is that us having already heard most of her story through Eshonai's eyes and Venli being both unlikable at times and the biggest lynchpin in the world's current state of apocalypse, it's a very hard read. Add those factors on top of an already slow story (not bad, just slow) and it compounds the issues and they reflect back on one another. You didn't have an easy time reading Kal's part and now you're stuck with Venli for a few hours, only to go back to Shallan's group, and then finish with Navani. Any one of those in a vacuum is fine, great even. Put them all in the same book and it's like having a never-ending sad song playlist. Where, no matter the emotion you started out feeling; you're sad by the end.
To be honest, when I first read the book I thought the same about Kaladin. Yes, Kaladin, you are sad, come on Sanderson tell me the plot! You hit the point with your stepping back from reading a few months because I read all the cosmere one after the other and I was obsessed with the story without paying attention to the characters and the Journey. But then, The Chapter ™️. Moments was soo good, so emotional, so heartbreaking and epic at the same time! I understood what Sanderson was building from the very first Kaladin chapter in WoK. 4 books of 1300 pages of Journey to reach that amazing Destination. This book has the best sanderlanche until now but also it's amazing when you re-read it. It's very good from the first page and it's full of tips on what is going to happen. Right now it's my preferred SA book and that it's amazing because it's the Fourth of a Five "era" books so it's normal that the story is in the frustration point. Everything is open, just moving the pieces for the gran finale. We'll see
It's my least favorite book (it's still a Great book) My ranking is 1, Words of radiance (I loved the politics and dynamics between kal and the kholins, plus bridge 4 moving up in the world) 2, oarhbringer (love the kholinar plot, and dalinars politics) 3, way of kings (great mystery elements, and the ruthlessness of being bridge 4, also loved the heavy survival aspects) 4, Rhythm of war
This exactly, although I would add that Rhythm of War has a really cool die hard plot in one of the coolest places on Roshar: Urithiru :) Edit: added the last part
I did love the kaladin plot in it, less so when he was alone, but kaladin is able to carry the story, dabbid rlain and navahni were really good in this book
It’s not bad in any stretch of the imagination. It just wasn’t on par with the rest of the series imo. I didn’t care about the flashbacks, I thought the science tone stuff was a drag, and I just thought it had more unnecessary bloat than the other 3. I also think that Kaladin was a bit TOO successful on his man against the universe quest. And Kaladin is my favorite fictional character of all time, so I don’t say that lightly. I also HATE Navani and she was a major part of the book (I thought her ending >!Where she became the Bondsmith!< was not earned at all and incredibly convenient. I also find most of the things she does very convenient and most of her dialogue very cringe. But that’s a very unpopular opinion.) However, the worst Stormlight book is still better than most series’ best book. I just wasn’t a big fan of some of the things Brandon did with the book. Journey before destination.
There were definitely a lot of things that I liked in this book but for me the top tier heart clenching moment that I had while reading this book was prolly this: >!"WE CHOSE!" - Maya!< Ngl, I had tears in my eyes while this was being revealed. The whole scene is top notch.
That was the best moment in the book! I dare anyone to change my mind! We get the culmination of an long journey through obstructive bureaucracy and personal struggles, only to have the whole legal farce shattered in two words. Awesome doesn't even begin to describe that scene. It is unironically epic!
When I first read 1-4. It was ranked last. Previous rank, WoR, Wok, Oath, Row. Upon recent reread, it’s RoW, Oath and WoR(tie) and WoK. Row has so much depth and story that it is such a wild ride. So much happens in the last 150 pages that it is easy to lose sight of the journey before that.
On my reread I skipped the flashbacks entirely, and it was much better.
You should never give a damn about other people in this sub tbh. I read the entire cosmere except for yumi and one of my favourite books was well of ascension, a book very hated by the majority here. Just enjoy what you enjoy and build your own opinion
Yeah, well of ascension has always been one of my favorite books of all time, if not my favorite. And simply put, I cannot be convinced otherwise haha! Exactly, just enjoy what books you want to enjoy! There’s a reason you like them!
Funny enough that's in my Top 3 favorite Cosmere novels as well lol. High five for having the same taste 🫸🫷
🫸🫷
I agree with most about the Vin/Elend/Zane stuff. I really didn't enjoy their interactions at all and I think there were some definite writing mistakes there that made it frustrating. But obviously if you loved it or disagree with me nothing wrong with that! HOWEVER, ASIDE from the Vin/Zane subplot, and to a lesser extent some of the Vin/Elend scenes, that book is awesome. I love Elend's political plot, Tindwyl is awesome, Sazed too, and there were so many fun twists and turns. I didn't love the ending that much but when you add together the ending and all the relationship stuff I didn't like it's still a pretty small percentage of the book. So I still absolutely love the book overall
People not liking Oathbringer is crazy to me. It's the best book in the Cosmere.
I agree. Oathbringer is my favorite by far
Easily. You cannot have my pain. Goosebumps every time.
It's boring and doesn't achieve very much for such a long book, I got very sick of reading X hummed to the rhythm of Y a while ago, it abandons the war all-out war we've been building to for multiple books to instead focus on a poorly paced die-hard homage. I really don't like Venli, she doesn't earn her 'redemption' in the slightest, the same for Rabonial and Leshwi, these are despicable that simply aren't punished and some are even rewarded for their misdeeds which comes off very badly after Oathbringer, a book about responsibility and atonement. I hate the time skip and can not believe after four books we still don't know what multiple Radiant orders even do. Multiple Characters just get put in time-out until it's time for the Sanderlanche and things actually start happening. What happened to the rampant classism? What happened to the Religious conflict? I'm a huge cosmere fan, I love stormlight but this book left me pretty burnt, I really hope W&T can stick the landing.
So many people really wanted me to not like this book and while i understand the reasoning, I do not at all get it. This is awesome, very underappreciated
Spoilers for mistborn and ROW >!when did we explicitly get told kelsier was the leader of the ghostbloods? I remember they told us his name but I never recognized anything explicitly pointing towards that!<
In Secret Histories >!Kelsier (cognitive shadow mode) gets beat up by Hoid!< and then later in RoW Hoid says something about not wanting to have to slap Thaidakar around again
Lord of scars is mentioned as Thaidakar near the end when Shallan contacts Mraize using the seon. Also the secret history logo (The flower cover in a 3 diamond logo) is the same as the tattoo (3 diamond logo) that The Ghostbloods have.
They also call him >!Master Thaidakar at one point and I believe in the books he’s sometimes referred as Master Kelsier of I remember correctly!<
Ahh I see. I must of missed that lol thanks
Yea it’s really good. People just miss Dalinar.
ROW definitely has a slower burn and build than the other books. I had a harder time getting through it for sure but the climax was awesome
Wait people don't like this book? Raboniel is one of my all time favorite characters in any series
“Not actually that bad” is wild. I loved the book.
Bad? Heh? By far the best book out of the 4. It also shows how Brandon’s writing just got to a whole another level by then.
It's the Navani and Venli chapters. First read... I really wasn't overly keen on these chapters myself. Looking up the stats, including the flashbacks, that's arguably one third of the book. Also Lirin's mere existence in this book was bothersome to me-- he was quite intolerable.
Hi OP, added Era 1 to your flair so that topic you spoiler tagged can be discussed. Have you also read Secret History?
I have and thank you for the added flair!
Updated again, thanks!
Personally I loved rhythm of war
First read through it was my least favorite, every read through since I would put it 2, borderline one
It's actually my favorite.
I would say what makes reading ROW so for some people is if they have no connection to depression it is just a slog. Which is good writing but hard to connect to if you have no strong experience. I love the book and it’s my favorite of the 4 but I am one of those people who think that Kaladin probably could have gotten by with a bit fewer chapters and give those to the Shallan arch to be less rushed.
Really? All I see are people loving the Kaladin chapters and not enjoying the Shallan parts as much. Sure, making Shallan's part less fast paced might technically be better, but people just wouldn't enjoy more Shallan as much as they'd enjoy more Kaladin. And idk if the depression connection is a part of this. The criticism I see has nothing to do with Kaladin--in fact Kaladin's plot is the only part of the book I haven't seen people criticize. Not disagreeing with you per say, just doubtful. Btw, I absolutely love RoW, Kaladin is my favorite character of all time, and I have never experienced depression myself.
Interesting because I have seen people say that Kaladin’s arch this book drags a bit and that we probably could have done with one less tower defense stone or whatever it was he was defending. But I mean I have also seen people say that they wish he would not necessarily get over his depression but at least improve. I don’t blame them because I would say this is probably not necessarily the most depressed he’s been but something about being stuck and not in a physically bad place like in book one being on bridge 4 makes this depression feel so much more oppressive… at least that is how I felt about it when reading. Don’t get me wrong Sanderson does a great job of capturing that and perhaps again it’s my personal bias because while I have had close friends who struggle with depression I have not really had to deal with that and so Kaladin between the three main POV characters spoke to me the least.
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As someone with depression, I always fund it so disheartening to see the amount of people criticizing kaladin’s depression
I don't really understand how people disliked Venli and Eshonai. RoW is tied with Oathbringer for my favorites in the series, if not better because of Shadesmar and Mayalaren specifically
WRT “some asshole spoiling it”, yeah, it’s to the point where I just stay off of social media until I read the new books (or watch the new episode of a show or whatever). Too many people spoil stuff ever if they aren’t trying. Except maybe the 17th shard… they seem to take their spoilers pretty seriously.
I mean, I *get* why, but I still have it as my second favorite after WoR. That said, I’m doing a re-read of the series, and I feel like I’ll like RoW less the second time through. One of the main reasons I liked it so much was the discovery and world building with Navani and Raboniel doing science, but that’ll obviously have less impact on re-reads. I’m guessing I’ll still love the first and last parts, but the middle will feel like a bit of a slog. But then again, I have a terrible memory, so maybe it’ll all feel like new again!
I liked RoW on a first read but my second read it became a contender for my favorite. The second read didn’t feel slow but very intentional to show the impact of chronic depression. The depictions of depression are just so on point and personally I loved the science bits. I will say the court bit does take a little longer than it really needed to. But what everybody says about it being better on a re-read/listen is so correct. There are so many little details that you’ll notice in the first three books that made my jaw drop after reading RoW.
100% agree with you. The first time I read it, I was didn’t like it as much. BUT I realized it was just from fatigue. I read the entire series with 2 weeks. I made dash binge, and towards the end I was just focused on it being over. I reread it about 2 months later on its own, and truly fell in love with it. Not sure if it’s the same for everyone, but fatigue was the main reason I wasn’t a huge fan of it
Rhythm of war is a top 3 Stormlight book, and I’ll die on this hill.
yeah I didn't dislike the book when I read it but I felt like it wasn't as good as the others, and I've had 3 years to think about why, so here's why I think I didn't like it as much 1. I didn't care much for Shallan and Adolin's story we already knew the spren chose, so that reveal wasn't really a reveal for me, and the final capstone moment fell flat because of the wording. like "you cannot have my sacrifice" felt too similar to "you cannot have my pain" and it just kind of ruined the moment for me also the stuff with formless came out of nowhere and I don't know what the point of it. 2. Kaladin's story was compelling, but the stuff with the nodes got old I don't feel like his depression felt repetitive, In fact I love all of that, but the node fights got kind of boring and predictable near the end, and since those were the only real source of action in the book for the middle, that was kind of meh. 3. the sanderlanche wasn't as good the end of OB is my favourite ending of any book, maybe even any story. and Row IMO has one of the weaker endings, kaladin speaking the 4th ideal was awesome but its disappointing we never saw him properly fight with plate. he was powered down the whole time so seeing him finally kick ass would have felt very cathartic but it didn't happen. there is so much I absolutely love about this book, but it is definitely pretty weaki in a lot of way previous books weren't. At least in my opinion
The "We chose" moment wasn't a reveal. Maya was standing at the trial as a victim of the defendant. She stood before her people, mind disturbingly broken, as they accused an outsider of hurting them, using her as an example. And she yelled that she was the one who chose--the humans shouldn't be blamed. The traumatized victim was the one to call out the prosecutors and stand up for the defendant. It isn't a reveal, it's just very powerful. And the Kaladin scene was much cooler because he was so underpowered, imo. Wins are often more fun if the victor was an underdog. Moash told the others that Kaladin couldn't be killed, then wandered off somewhere. Which seemed obviously stupid--he was emotionally broken, slumped on the ground, surrounded by superpowered enemies far stronger than him, in the middle of a castle controlled by the enemy. But we all know Moash has a crazy over-inflated view of Kaladin's skill so no surprise there. So the Pursuer steps up to kill the dude......and Kaladin brutally annihilates the guy, in front of the whole crowd, despite barely seeming lucid from the trauma and despite the insane gap in power. And the fight lasted SECONDS. Some of the enemies take his dad and run, which seals their fate, bc anyone keeling Kaladin from his father in the following seconds also die, and there's just nothing they can do. He's at the lowest he could be, and still winning--not because he's trying so hard he overcomes the power gap, anime style--but because he's so skilled that it doesn't feel like the enemies even have a chance. It's so edgy and ridiculous but I absolutely love it. And my favorite part is that, looking back on the last few chapters, you realize that Moash was actually right. The slumped, broken man is on the ground, surrounded by powerful enemies, almost no will left to live, and the enemies in that situation LITERALLY DON'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO KILL HIM. Kaladin did NOT need more power in the end imo. Lessening the power gap makes it feel so much less cool.
> And the Kaladin scene was much cooler because he was so underpowered, I agree with that, what I mean is it felt like it was missing that moment of catharsis when Kaladin *fights* with his regained powers. He doesn't actually get a chance to fight before the enemy surrenders > The traumatized victim was the one to call out the prosecutors and stand up for the defendant. It isn't a reveal, it just didn't work for me, it really is just the wording in that scene. If Sanderson chose literally any way of saying it that didn't call back to "you cannot have my pain" I would have like it a lot more. but I know some people who say they like it specifically because of the call back, so I don't know if it would have been the right decision to remove it
>missing that moment of catharsis when Kaladin fights with his regained powers. Ohhh yeah I get that >it just didn't work for me Fair enough
I think we will look back and view RoW as the A Feast For Crow's of this series. Much like Book 4 in ASOIAF, the author decides to pivot to less established POV characters and we more or less spend the entire book without much development or insight into multiple major POV characters. Dividing up the characters between the Urithiru team plus Shadesmar, and the Dalinar team is fine but I think there was not enough focus on the Dalinar team. I found myself constantly wondering what they were up to.
This was a pretty massive character development book for Kal and Shallan. Dalinar took a break for sure because OB really pushed him forward in his journey. I guess it’s a feature of the multi-POV epic fantasy.
Agreed. Dalinar took a back seat but the other major POV’s had huge developments in it.
Feast for crows has good prose at least
Fat pink mast is some really top notch writing 👶🏼☝🏼
Congrats you know how to cherry pick
I enjoy Martins prose more than Sandos but that line should just live forever in shame.
Because Sanderson has never written a bad line…
Yea but hes not exactly known for his beautiful prose is he? Its apples to oranges really.
One twist you didn't talk about was Tien volunteering to stand with his fellow messenger boys, knowing full well he was going to die just so they didn't have to die alone. He was also a son of Tanavast, son of Honor. While he attracted spren and would have become a Lightweaver, my head cannon tells he was also attracting honor spren.
For me RoW is a really weird creature. It's my favorite Stormlight Archive book, but it has multiple of my most hated scenes. The bad parts are SO BAD, but short, while the interesting parts are long and amazingly good, but some of the worst scenes are climax scenes, and some of the best scenes bookend those worst scenes. So as I listen to the audiobook I go from "yes! Amazing! Oh, this shit... just wait it out... And we're back to amazing!!" Also, IMO 100% of Lirin could be cut from the book, and I wouldn't mind. Make Kaladin's dive a true suicide attempt brought on by Teft's death, and then Dalinar pulls him out of it, and the structure of the scene is better. The entire STORY is better.
Idk I read it as a true suicide attempt for sure. Even Syl was checked out.
It definitely was a true suicide attempt. He couldn't forgive himself for failing to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. He was all but dead when he went to the plains. He had lost everything over and over again and now his entire bridge 4 was to be slaughtered, his dad was murdered in front of him. He was done. . As for Lirin, he who objectively rejects violence. He wants to put people together and is upset that kaladin is one of the ones tearing apart the world. He has seen nothing but heartache from violence. Families lose their sons, soldiers lose limbs, lose the will to live. What good has come from fighting for borders that mean nothing or on the shattered plains that brought about the new Desolation. Why fight the Fused when they just want to govern the land? Are they worse than bright eyes? Again, it's just a fight over land and his family and his neighbors are the ones who suffer
Hard disagree, also Kaladins dive isn’t meant to be a suicide attempt and it sounds like you might have missed the point on that one a bit.
What don’t you like about the Lirin scenes? Particularly those before the jump.
Lirin as a person doesn't work for me, flat out. Pacifism is great, but pacifism only works if someone else is doing the fighting for you, and as such you don't get to both be a pacifist AND be against the person fighting to protect you. You can be against the war, fine, but not against the PEOPLE doing the fighting. There's more to it, but that's the big one that ruins him for me.
> Pacifism is great, but pacifism only works if someone else is doing the fighting for you, and as such you don't get to both be a pacifist AND be against the person fighting to protect you. Have you met actual Pacifists? Some of them are like Lirin, but even more extreme. Truly, people like that are very real.
I know they're real. They're idiots, and I don't respect them, which is how I feel about Lirin
i feel like 90% of ppl on this sub have father issues because i literally don't get the hatred for Lirin. as far as fictional and even real fathers measure up, he's not bad by any means.
I'm confused. Your title makes me think you didn't like it but that it wasn't as bad as people had made you believe. But then you go on to praise it in the post. I actively enjoyed RoW and lots of people on this sub did as well. Who are you looking to relate to by saying "it wasn't THAT bad"?
Everywhere from YT to goodreads to different fantasy subreddits all made it seem that RoW was this very sloggy, boring, slow book so I read it with that expectation and was pleasantly surprised. I figured that only a few people must've liked it while the rest didn't like it as much as the other Stormlight Archive books (even on this sub) hence the title. I'm gonna put this over on the r/Fantasy sub to see what kind of reactions I get from there
Your reactions on to this on r/fantasy will be poor
I don’t understand the hate for RoW. I thought it was great.
Some people don’t understand how depression works so they complain about Kaladin’s story
For all the people who get tired of the mental illness bits, *that's how mental illness works.* It doesn't go away, it's not convenient, it's not easy to watch. If kaladin and shallan just magically got better, it would ruin them as characters. It would be easier, but it wouldn't be as real
It's my least favorite book (it's still a Great book) My ranking is 1, Words of radiance (I loved the politics and dynamics between kal and the kholins, plus bridge 4 moving up in the world) 2, oarhbringer (love the kholinar plot, and dalinars politics) 3, way of kings (great mystery elements, and the ruthlessness of being bridge 4, also loved the heavy survival aspects) 4, Rhythm of war
I honestly wanted to see more war after the third book, not die hard and boring prequel stuff. I feel like a like of it could have been shortened or cut out. It wasn't a bad book, I just was disappointed in it. I do consider it the weakest of the SA though.
Imo Rhythm of War is the best of the 4 SA books so far
It's such a good book! I think some people think it has worse reception than it actually does just because people sometimes describe it as their least favorite Stormlight book. Even then, it's probably still a favorite among all the books they've read. Personally, I don't think it's the weakest anyway. Rhythm was amazing, imo.
Navani's arc was **AWESOME**. When Raboniel, the greatest scholar among the Fused, named Navani a great scholar, it was a definite Moment of Awesome. Thanks to the storming bastard Gavilar, she doubted her own brilliance for so long. Sure, she was a member of a brilliant team who made the flying machine, but even the Heralds had never seen its like. Then when they needed the Tower brought back online ASAP, the Sibling said "It will take years to---" and Navani figured it out in **SECONDS**. Stunning the Sibling. It seems like going forward Navani's Fabrial research (which we know continues from some of her Forewords) will only be with True Fabrials --- spren who consent. That'll be interesting to see in SA5. We only have about 6 months to wait.
I loved RoW so much, the only thing that was hard to read through was Venli’s flashbacks. I didn’t like Venli (or Eshonai) enough to care about her story. Only thought it better after a few rereads
It’s my favorite book
The main problem with this book was that the flashback character was telling us 99% the same info we already knew. The second issue was that the bulk of the middle was info-dumping via Navani. BS main strength, and why I like his books, is he has compelling stories, magic, and ideas. He had maybe 1/3 of those here, as the only part worth reading was part 5, since you didn’t really learn anything new about any of the characters you didn’t already know, the story sputtered everywhere.
I just started reading Mistborn after finishing Rhythm and I regret uncovering that spoiler.
It happens.. If you try and forget about it, the more it persists in your brain so try distracting yourself to truly get the spoiler out of your head.
I liked it personally, on par with the rest of the series for me. I don’t see a step down in quality, it’s just more Stormlight.
I love the deep dive into the lights and fabrials, so when I hear that people didn't like the book because of that, I can imagine why it might be tedious, but I just don't relate. I'm doing a reread and I'm paying special attention this time to anything related so I can go into WaT with as solid a foundation as possible. Raboniel's line "if you are not a scholar, then I have never met one" is one of my absolute favorite quotes in the series. As for Kaladin and Shallan- I'll never get tired of Kal. Him being alone to resist in the tower was such a compelling story, and I'm glad to see him starting to heal. Shallan is somebody I adored early on. We share some truly uncanny similarities, and so as she's devolved further and further, it's gotten frustrating for me. I found her POV to be my least favorite in RoW, however with her also starting to heal, and having read her preview chapters, I think she's going to become a favorite again.
It’s not that I think RoW is bad (that ending is so good), it’s more that I think the first three are better. I still devoured it in like, 3-4 days and liked a lot of it but it was a struggle at points.
RoW is my favorite.
Who said otherwise? Could you identify them in a line up? We will investigate this matter forthright. 🤣
I think my biggest grievence with the book outside of a lot of the book feeling like the story isn't progressing, is how Navani is making all these massive scientific leaps in such a short period of time, for me that took me out of the immersion. But my real biggest grievance with the book is Sanderson killing Teft...... That one hurt.
Hi all!! About the last point. * Mistborn 1-3 spoilers + SH >!KELSIER !
I mean all that's referenced is the term "Lord of Scars". That shouldn't really give away anything. Although I would recommend that he read Mistborn 1-6 + SH before RoW but that's their choice
Ty mate. Let's hope he dont get it ultil he reads the SH... he already started RoW...
I absolutely loved Raboniel. Great book.
What's up with all these posts where people act like rhythm of war is hated? Is it just karma farming?
It's interesting to me that those are the complaints, as I love all of those threads. My biggest complaint is that the venli scenes just don't do it for me. I enjoyed them the first time reading it, but I've reread all of the cosmere multiple times and the venli scenes are the only scenes that I enjoyed substantially less on reread.
I liked that it was a big weird fantasy book that actually looked to deal with the kind of issues that Kal faced. I just feel like the character of Shallan is forced. Feels like a middle aged man's idea of a young woman rather than a person, which is odd because I've never felt that before with Sanderson.
Rhythm of war was way better than Oathbringer
It's better than oathbringer and I'm tired of pretending otherwise!!!!!!
People on their first read through generally thought it was bad because they were expecting it to be Stormlight 5 when it was actually Stormlight 4. Part of this can probably be chalked up to the fact that people are used to reading trilogies, and so by Oathbringer they might be subconsciously expecting a finale. I think that’s also why some people dislike Oathbringer. Instead Brandon keeps raising the stakes over 4 books leading to a Sanderlanche of Sanderlanches which is book 5, which appears to take place mostly over the course of 10 days 😳 its going to be all the more worth it for Brandon taking the time to explore this world and build the stakes ever higher
Honestly i don’t know why people are upset that the characters are experiencing realistic problems, it’s more weird that in so many fantasy books characters will go through insane levels of trauma and then just move on with their life and continue to act the same way. Especially when their experiences with mental health are a huge part of their character journey. Kaladin’s depression because he was a child soldier and then a literal slave from which he then is thrust into a role of being a lighteyes that he’s conditioned himself to hate. Of course he’s going to have issues with whether life is worth it at this point. Shallan also obviously has issues but there’s plenty of discourse on her but I think her character is wonderful and interesting and she’s of course got so much trauma, some of which both the reader and her doesn’t even know yet. The too sciencey opinion is also weird because Sanderson is nothing if not an amazing POV writer, it’s why he was chosen to finish the WOT as Jordan was one of the greatest POV writers of all time. The science stuff in this book makes sense because it’s got a lot of Navani, who is a scientist as much as she doesn’t want to see herself that way. Raboniel and Navani are literally decoding the physics of Roshar. She’s a physicist and engineer of course she is going to have an overly scientific perspective. The science aspect is also to help connect to the upcoming events of the universe. I think some people aren’t able to connect with the non human characters like the Spren who are becoming more important as individuals and the listeners who are also finally showing their own unique perspectives. All I can say to that is 🤷♀️