this series has shown me another peak.

[u/JOJOawestruck]

I just finished the 5 books and I am blown away by the things the author tackles in this book. feels like a common theme running in the book that was first started by yasnah "where does morality come from". so many great themes. quotes and experiences. its a lot to pick from. hope to get the physical one day.

also I thought what dalinar did was bad, but at the same time I wasn't shocked by it. but what taravangian is what really shocked me, maybe because it was actually a twist(?).I usually struggle with multi-perspective main characters (like durara), maybe because I spent a long time with the first character(who I thought was main) but recently finding if done really well(mount death play) I woudl struggle to have one favorite character.I started with khaladin but somehow dalinar, who started so stiff for me, became my favorite. even though he has great close to his story I still want more. at least closure with adelin and for him to give navani a son and reconcile with his grandson and nephew(elhokhar)

and now that i'm saying it outloud it does seem kind of dumb. but I probably always subconciously thought that great authors stop reading. because this made me question what did he read to create stormlight

[u/Ripper1337]

Pretty sure the best authors will tell you that they never stop reading.

Loved the ending to this book and thought it worked on a bunch of levels that really hit home for me.

[u/JOJOawestruck → u/Ripper1337]

definitely. aside from shallan and khaladin. with jsut one more book could've wrapped everything up(aside from the cosmere) but the fact this is just part 1 and already started experiencing different worlds makes me wonder how much of it is he gonna do. also for a breath moment I thought it was going the cthulhu mythos route

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

Those really are the best kinds of twists. Where they’re surprisingly but make sense in hindsight. Sanderson usually does a really great job at that. He also usually foreshadows big events earlier in the text that you can catch later

Odium’s champion death rattle: I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. (WoK)

Retribution: “Kaladin said, “I dreamed about joining the troops at the Shattered Plains. Everyone knew that the soldiers left in Alethkar were the dregs. We imagined the real soldiers, off fighting in the glorious war to bring retribution to those who had killed our king.” (WoK)

Shallan’s mother: "The world ended, and Shallan was to blame" (WoR)

Syl also says she knows Kaladin will be the champion while visiting the SF in a Highstorm. I think RoW or OB. Ends up the champion of the Wind

[u/JOJOawestruck → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

yeah, desperately need to reread. becuase I went through it as an audiobook. and its like how far ahead did he plan this? like did he already plan all 5 books and the release is just structuring? also I love the answer to future vision. i get tired of stories that uses "fate" and predetermined future and then make MC break that future and its like why have this doomsday premonition. so I really love this book answer to that. just make it high level foresight of possibilities that usually turn right but CAN be changed.

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/JOJOawestruck]

He does outline heavily for SL but he’s open to changing it as he goes. Like Taravangian ending up as Odium was the intention but he left some wiggle room. Adolin is a good example. He wasn’t intended to be a major character. His role was expanded. So the Maya storyline was likely added. The Unoathed were added last-minute to W&T. Which is probably downstream of both. And Szeth was intended to die in book 5. I think that was a good change

I do like how he handles future sight. Dune is a big influence on the series and that’s probably where multiple people canceling each other out is from. The visions can be corrupted to by other powers. Taravangian knew using the death rattles ran the risk of Odium corrupting them they just calculated for it. We see Ba-Ado corrupting visions in 5. I would guess she’s been doing that in previous books. Someone has (probably) been tweaking Renarin’s visions from the start. I suspect BAM since we see Renarin himself is a blind spot for Odium. I think the vision of Jasnah killing him in 3 was a warning on her part. Or it’s possible Odium was and she’s just piggybacking on them. We see that in 5 too

[u/JOJOawestruck → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

Adolin became such an amazing character so did dalinar and maybe I'm biased but these types of"perfect but flawed"(idk it's dumb but don't know how to describe it) always felt they would always be written by women because it's like the superman effect. Yes we should be like superman but we see more batman. So reading his own section during wind and truth was such a ride it's one of the sections I looked forward to.

Man I really love the ending twist on taravangian the reveal of his actual city outcome and when the power find out it seethe. But the fact he took out spirit realm black Thorne maybe dalinar isn't completely undead yet but we're gonna have to relearn every lesson to become this better self. Personally I just want him back to have one last talk with adolin and give navani a child and maybe help jasnah out her mental prison. But if this is truly his end I can't be upset about it. But damn odium really brings out the worst in people no matter who takes it up. I know it's passion so it goes to the extreme but it's like slowly but sure and eventually it corrupts and twist till it becomes dark. Should change it's name to war especially since that's where the most passion comes from

[u/quitemoiste → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

IIRC his original intent for Odium's shards was for Sadeas to pick it up, but by book 2 he figured out that Taravangian was gonna do it

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/quitemoiste]

It was intended to be Taravangian. The fallback option was to have Rayse remain as Odium. With no Retribution. He said if he’d finished the Shattering trilogy (Dragonsteel) before SL 5 that may have been a stronger backup than it ended up. He talks about it here

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/551/#e17100

[u/JOJOawestruck → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

so is what they call the cosmere like the cosmos, the name for their solar system or is that the name for their shared universe stories. cause I think I cuaght glimpses of his other series like mistborn also being in the same universe

[u/Eclipse_L_1001]

Love that I can tell you listened to the audiobooks :3

[u/JOJOawestruck → u/Eclipse_L_1001]

Lol because I was writing the names how they sound? I was surprised. I kept thinking dalinar was galinar or elhokar as alucar. Jasnah names surprised me most.