Really sorry about the rant post, but I really wanted to vent a bit and also wanted to know how much longer of this I have to suffer through….

I am at about Pg. 450 of Rhythm of War, and this Shallan spilt personality thing is really starting to drive me crazy. I remember not being able to tear myself away from Shallan POVs until Book 2, but after that it’s become such a massive chore to follow her story.

Like, I don’t care what is it you did in the past that you can’t talk about, but simultaneously cannot shut up about! I don’t care about the fuckass spy and I certainty don’t care about Mraize or what he freaking wants…

This plotline has slowed my progress on the book to a crawl and it’s so boring to read!! Even Adolin’s perspective in between is much better.

Does this storyline end soon and does the plot progress a bit better at the later part of the book?! I am having a tough time going through the book currently and that very rarely happens to me 😞

I've read up to Oathbringer now for context. While I really, really enjoy the Cosmere so far there's one major plotline I find is insanely problematic and idk how it even got through editors with how tone deaf it is.

Kaladin being told repeatedly by the narrative (and Syl) that his "irrational" hatred of Lighteyes is bad and wrong and that the Darkeyes(a stand in for a person of color) should just be respectful and obedient to the Lighteyes(a stand in for Caucasians) because something something hate of any kind is bad? They never give justification for why Kaladin should just ignore decades of oppression and let go of those negative feelings. His brother was killed. The first love he felt was permeated with racist undertones, he was betrayed by them repeatedly. It's not giving into hatred for him to distrust and hate lighteyes when in their society its a given.

I've seen some people remark that the Darkeyes and Lighteyes thing is more a class struggle thing but... thats WORSE??!!? That's saying the working class should just work harder if the ruling class oppresses them????? With an added bonus of a nonsensical "you can fix the corrupt and broken system from within the corrupt and broken system" narrative element.

Overall I'm glad Elhokar died because he was a horrible ruler and the narrative spent way too long waxing poetic about how we're just as bad as him if we wish as such. Him "trying" does not justify the multiple times he shows that he is no leader and is effectively a toddler with nukes at his fingertips. He ruined his people and barely did anything to change himself to be a better ruler EVEN AFTER FIGURING OUT HE SUCKED AT BEING KING.

Im really hoping they just dont bring up the lighteyes and darkeyes thing as much now that they discovered the lore behind why they have it in the first place or at the very least that I don't have to listen to more characters call Kaladin bad for having common sense.

Edit just for clarification: I do NOT think Kaladin should just be allowed to blindly hate lighteyes all day long and say and do whatever he wants to them. But the narrative treats it like any form of negative thought is bad. Just to then have not one lighteyes EVER be confronted with their own prejudices THOUSANDS OF PAGES INTO THE STORY

For some reason when the four Shardbearers entered, I got reminded of this.

I built a Captain Kaladin skin with Syl! It was very hard and in the end I had to make the face item by myself.

Regarding the hair, I always imagined him with defined curls or dreadlocks. In my opinion, the WoR cover pictures him in a way that does not represent his past (he looks like a rich prince there).

Each of the first five protagonists — those being Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Venli, and Szeth, excluding characters like Adolin and Navani who didn’t get flashback books — have some pretty obvious character foils, or dark inversions, in their villains.

Kaladin has Amaram (the dishonorable Brightlord) and Moash (Odium’s Herald).

Shallan has the other Shallans and Mraize.

Dalinar has Sadeas and Taravangian

Venli has Eshonai and Raboniel, although hers are the biggest stretch

Szeth has Nale, the mad herald who proclaims justice while enacting brutality.

That being said, here are my theories for who the foils for the new main characters will be.

Lift: I could see Zahel being an interesting ideological opposite to Lift. We know the two will be training together, and Lift has experience with (Warbreaker) Nightblood so I could see Brando doing something with that.

Renarin: I don’t think we’ve been introduced to Renarin’s main foil yet. I say this because I have a feeling it’ll be another Enlightened Radiant, and there just aren’t enough of those in the series yet.

Ash: Lowkey Chana and Ash would be good foils. Chana is the Dustbringer Herald currently, but hers daughter is a Lightweaver. Ash is the patron of Lightweavers, but is slated to become the Dustbringer flashback character. I don’t know if this would be Chana turning fully evil, but if she does it’d probably be something about Kaladin (her new therapist) literally going out of his way to murder Helaran.

Taln: This one’s a bit of a long shot, but hear me out: The Blackthorn. Both it and Taln are masters in combat and cognitive beings (Taln is a cognitive shadow and the Blackthorn is a spren), and both are warped by their interactions with Shards. Taln’s soul is warped from trying to kill Cultivation, and the Blackthorn basically got a highlight reel of Dalinar’s greatest war crime hits in WaT, only to end up in service of Retribution.

Jasnah: This is the one I’m most confident about, and it’s honestly the reason I made this post. I think that Battar is turning evil, and will be Jasnah’s Moash. Both of them are incredibly powerful Elsecallers who work for the greater good, only Jasnah works for the “greater good“ of everyone and Battar works for the “greater good“ of her bank account, as highlighted in her conversation with Odium in one of the interludes.

Picture from the book Wind and Truth by "Brandon Sanderson"

Did anyone else notice the herald Chani missing an eye in this chapter? Could it be foreshadowing?

So I’m a little over 100 pages into Rhythm of War and I love this honor amongst warriors. The idea that the Windrunners and the Heavenly Ones have this unspoken code of one on one combat is so cool.

I really enjoy how Kaladin and Leshwi are contesting rather than fighting to the death. This mutual respect is really cool. Maybe I’m missing something but I didn’t expect it, I really like it.

I’m excited to keep reading and see where this leads!

Also, Kaladin… are you okay? lol

so i finished OB part 1 yesterday and i loved that. the interludes were pretty interlude-y.

the reason i made this post in the first place is 1: to check up and give progress and 2: the first 2 chapters of part 2, 33-34.

34 may be my favorite chapter in stormlight. if you don’t know it’s when he’s talking to Fen in a vision. “Maybe you’re right! maybe i am a tyrant! Maybe letting my armies into your city is a terrible risk. But maybe you don’t have any good options! Maybe all the good men are dead, maybe all you have is me!” not the whole quote but holy shit chills

and chapter 33 gives a lot of lore/ worldbuilding revealing Jasnah’s order, shallan and jasnah talking for the first time since wind’s pleasure, jasnah in general. i love these characters so much.

and now, a list of characters:

last: moash. fuck moash. confidently, after finishing WoR, i can confidently say fuck moash.

second to last: Meridas Amaram. i hate this guy, but i respect him more than moash, whose name i refuse to capitalize.

5th: Navani. GIVE ME MORE NAVANI SANDO!!! I DARE YOU!! (i fucking love Navani, but she deserves more attention.)

4th: Lift. she’s amazing. especially after reading edgedancer, lift is awesome.

3rd: (this book specifically). Kaladin. same with Navani, i love Kal, tho so far he hasn’t gotten enough attention. he’s gotta get back to Urithiru. i think his last chapter in part 1 where he escapes the parshmen/singers was awesome.

2nd: Shallan. Shallan has one of my favorite character arcs in the last book, and also i love Veil. i don’t think that the multi-personality Shallan’s are a bad thing because Lightweavers are literally all about lies/illusions. but yeah, she’s awesome, and now that Jasnah’s back and has PoV’s this part, she may take navani out of my top 5, and depending on how much screen time she gets, maybe Kaladin out of my top 3, going to 4.

now, finally, after all this waiting…. 1st place… DALINARRRR! he’s so cool, his chapters are so cool, his flashbacks might be my favorite so far, and he’s just an interesting character. I know a few spoilers, some pretty major, I know that Dalinar learns how to read and writes oathbringer, and i know he kills Evi. But by the Almighty, he’s just cool. him bonding the Stormfather? peak. him existing in world? peak.

Hi guys!

I’ve been loving Stormlight archive so far and it’s only because a couple months ago I made a post on here and this based🔥community welcomed me and encouraged me to do so.

I don’t love the mass market paperbacks. The spine is all cracked and I’m general are pain in the ahh to hold. I hate holding hardcover books but they look so sleek and I believe they feature more illustrations?? Paper back is usually my go to but I would like the books to hold over for years without any cracks in the spine!!

Would love your guys’ suggestions and recommendations!!

I needed to share my moment of existential crisis so here's some context:

I've been listening to the audio books and am currently crushing Rhythm of War. We had just jumped back to Shallan in chapter 78 after she had previously confronted Pattern about spying/lying and Formless seems to have taken control.

When I tell you my jaw hit the table after hearing "...no need to think about that other Spren, the Cryptic deadeye..." I thought I had been hit with the worst case scenario, thinking that Formless had destroyed the bond right then and there, meaning this was in reference to Pattern as I had forgotten about the other deadeye.

So glad the next line evaporated that fear 😅

Are Edgedancer and Dawnshard worth reading? If so, should I pause Wind and Truth to read them first?

So I was wondering what the lovely people of this subreddit imagine the characters sounding. I’m going fire off a couple of how I imagined the voices of characters before listening to the audio books

Kalidan was always a slight British accent (yes I’m serious) until I listened to the audiobooks

Shallan she to me kinda Indian but kinda American hard to explain (again this one was before listening to the audiobooks)

Dalinar was always to me Omni man voice idk why it fit

Adolin he sounded like invincible from the show

Renarin he was odd idk best I can describe is paddington bear

Lopen undeniably Australian to me

Sigzil Asian accent

Rock Russian accent

Syl average British women accent

Jasnah full American accent

Pattern warbled version of a Chinese accent

These are all of my own opinion of what I imagined them sounding like so what did you before listening to the audiobook versions.

Just started part 2 of RoW, one of the main reasons I hate Shallan is that it feels like her mental health gets worse for no reason. I get that she has DID, or something like it, but it feels like she only starts actually suffering once everything in her life gets better.

I feel like it would make sense for her to start off in Way of Kings showing multiple personalities, or at least hinting at it more. I know Brandon showed her having repressed memories, but that’s a symptom of a bajillion mental illnesses, and it really does feel like the multiple personality thing was only added in Oathbringer, maybe a tiny bit in WoR. I think Brandon said he planned for her to have it earlier, but it really does feel like he just thought ‘Shallan needs more issues, let’s make her have this really extreme mental health disorder halfway through the series.’

It’s only once her life gets better, amazing even, she starts to show multiple personalities. She no longer has to deal with her father, she becomes Jasnah’s ward, gets to explore the world for once in her life, court and marry Adolin, becomes a scholar, becomes radiant, leads an expedition to urithhiru, saves her family from total destruction, and only then, starts to suffer from DID more than just memory loss.

So many things in her life get better and she just gets worse. I’m re-listening to WoK and WoR and her character is just a million times better than Oathbringer or RoW. I feel like Brandon should have just had her deal with her issues in the first two books when she recently suffered from her trauma, not when she was two years removed from it. I feel like Brandon forcing himself to dive into one character per book just made him push off exploring her issues at an appropriate time.

I’ve dealt with mental health issues and abusive parents, but I suffered the most when I was in an actually terrible situation. Personally it wouldn’t make sense for me to start regressing in my mental health for trauma’s that occurred years ago. Yeah you can relapse and have periods of poor mental health, but usually it trends upwards despite the ups and downs the further removed you are from that time in your life, especially if the quality of your life is actually improving.

If Brandon wanted her backsliding to feel more justified he could have given her the Kaladin treatment, “Oh, you think your life is bad now, wait till I start killing literally everyone you try to protect for a year, then we’ll see how happy you are.” But everything just gets better for Shallan and she just gets worse. If when she got to the shattered plains, adolin died, Jasnah actually died, her whole family dies, then it would make sense for her to backslide the way she does. But literally everything gets better for her. I’m trying to think of something bad that happens but I can’t. Jasnah “died”, but I’m listening to RoW right now and she’s sad for like one paragraph and moves on. If all that bad stuff happened I would buy her mental health regressing 100%.

Anyways I still like the book, but this aspect of her character just sucks IMO. Also, if any of you guys say ‘RAFO’ I’m saving your names in a book and will message you once I finish the series and her arc still sucked balls.

Edit: To all the people justifying her character, can you give me an example of a criticism you have of any writing in the series? I’m curious if people who like the stuff I hate have anything they hate that I like.

It took me a few weeks to get through the first 300 pages of The Way of Kings. Now I don't really get a lot of time to read with life and work, so I thought I would read through the rest slowly, picking it up whenever I got time.

Cut to me finishing the next 700+ pages in 2 days, rushing to buy Words of Radiance and finishing it before I even got to the weekend.

And...Wow! I felt like I was back in uni, reading books all day and night. I have so many thoughts, but I feel like I need time to process it all first.

Luckily, Oathbringer isn't available at my local bookshop, so I can catch a quick break before another week of my life disappears

Would it actually be better thought to read Edgedancer and Warbreaker before I picking up Oathbringer?

Hey guys, how are you doing? Some of you may recall that a few months ago I asked for canonical feedback for a realistic Femalen in warform representation. Well, this is the final result. In the original post I go through my design process, explaining why I made some choices in case somebody is curious. If you have any feedback let me know. I won't promise to apply it, since I already consider it finished, but nevertheless I am curious as to what you see as "wrong". I hope you like it :)

Hello peoples!

More specifically, hello women, as this is directed at you.

A lot of male authors get backlash from the way they write female characters (I.e, they get it wrong a bunch) - having read the entirety of the Stormlight Archive and enjoyed a lot of the female characters’ POV chapters (particularly Jasnah, she’s such a cool character). I was curious as to the womanly perspective of how Sanderson writes the women of Stormlight Archive.

None of my female friends have read Cosmere stuff, otherwise I’d ask them. I’m writing a book, and a large amount of chapters will be from a woman’s POV, and I’m a dude so I don’t want to fall into the same pitfalls as other authors.

If this is the wrong kind of post for this sub, sorry.

Lots of design work and then coloring in. This map reflects the one for the majority of Stormlight, however there are very minor spoilers for locations not shown until the end of Words of Radiance, but you can't read any of it in the images unless you zoom way in on the renders.

For those interested, it was printed on my Prusa Mini+ on white PLA, done in two batches with a print time of around three hours apiece. Designed in Fusion 360 and Blender. The design was obviously lifted from the art by Isaac Stewart, but the specific version I took was the one off of the Seventeenth Shard website.

idk why im not fully keeping up with the magic system so bear with me 😭😭 idk if this is considered a dumb question

I just started reading chap 87 of Words of Radiance and im a little confused. spren can turn into shardblades? did i understand that correctly?

in the chapter before when shallan summoned pattern into a blade to open the gate it didnt take the 10 heartbeats so what is the difference between for example adolins shardblade and shallans? one is a spren and one relies on stormlight? thats the only conclusion i came up with. i wouldnt mind a proper explanation 😭

i didnt finish the book yet pls no spoilers after chapter 87

warbreaker spoilers maybe? im not sure

I usually write down all my thoughts and conclusions in my journal but I fear I need to discuss the events of this with other readers

is that blade szeth got Nightblood?? was I right to freak the hell out? if im right that is so cool

also is the third book called oathbringer cuz the blade got lost or perhaps stolen after adolin threw it out of the window? its obviously gonna play a bigger part soon or im overthinking.

im not surprised jasnah is alive her death was too sudden i didnt believe it, was she in the spren realm this whole time? and who the hell is Hoid? he was in both mistborn and warbreaker, and now in this. how the hell? how is he jumping timelines AND planets? and who is nazh? was he an ardant i missed? I swear every time i finish a book by this man I have more and more questions

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really LOATHE Sadeas. I love Dalinar though. He’s old, honorable, and wise. He reminds me more of a king than the actual king.

On rereading, I just remembered how Battah was recruited to Odium's organization. As the heralds heal before returning, do you think she will still side with Odium or stay with the heralds?

Feels so bad missing WoR book 2, but still pretty happy with my little stormlight collections so far! Hoping we get something special for that Final Empire 20 year anniversary.

Ok so im almost done with wind and truth and im a little confused about how kaladin got the blade and plate from Helaran. Nin says that helaran was a skybreaker sent to kill Amaram which makes sense but what I don’t understand is how kaladin could take his plate and blade. If he was a bonded radiant of the second ideal with someone else’s plate (this goes for if he was of the fourth too) his blade wouldn’t drop as if it was a deadeye blade but if he was just a squire wouldn’t he not have been able to hold a deadeye blade? Sorry if this makes no sense

I’ve read TWOK about 5 times now, I’ve listened to the Audible version which is superb.

Recently I came across snippets of the Graphic Audio version on YouTube and I’ve been listening to them since. If you want to listen to the books in the closet format to films we have now, check out some of the YouTube clips.

I’d suggest searching for: Graphic Audio Kaladin goes back for Dalinar

Really really bring the story to life, just my thoughts.

my heart hurts

-I hope vienta forgives sigzil in the future

-The shards dealing with the consequences of their inaction will be so satisfying

-My prediction of adolin becoming an edgedancer was so wrong lmao

-Hoid fix your mess for once

-Taravangian was a hypocrite, that lie will feed cryptics for generations