[OB] The Amount of Shallan

[ICanDream]

In Oathbringer, Shallan was the character with the highest word count. Her word count at the end of the book stood at 106,000, while Dalinar, the star of the show, only had 94,000 words. (This is of course not including Dalinar’s flashback chapters.) Shallan had 54 -54! - viewpoints, while Dalinar had 45. 

So what do you guys think of Shallan’s prominence in this book? Was it a good thing? Or was it very, very bad?

For me? I thought it was ok, but I did prefer Dalinar’s chapters, so more of him would have been preferable.

Thoughts?

[aemetha he/him]

I think Shallan's story arc was more complicated, and required more word count to convey. To be fair as well, even with the higher word count the amount of disagreement over her story arc on this board is an indicator that it still wasn't adequate to fully explain what is going on with her. I think Dalinar's story arc was simpler, but had more weight. What Dalinar did in the book rocked the story more than what Shallan did in the book, so in that respect it was still his book.

[Calyx]

I think many of Shallan's viewpoints included interaction with other important characters, most notably Kaladin, Adolin, and Azure. This might be one reason for how much of Shallan we saw.

I actually feel that we didn't see enough of Shallan, really, and would have liked more (though, she is my favorite character after Pattern and maybe Jasnah). Her character arc ended in a very good but seemingly very, very tenuous place - I was hoping her split personas would be resolved by the end of the book. Hopefully the next book will see her spending a lot more time with Jasnah and actually fixing herself.

[bdoble97]

I love Shallan and she's got three personalities so you got three characters to add to her word count totall hahaha. 

Edited December 11, 2017 by bdoble97

[treblkickd he/him]

Firstly, I think it's highly misleading to exclude Dalinar's flashbacks for the purpose of comparing relative dominance of the narrative. The flashbacks were just as much a part of his arc in OB as his present-time PoVs.

That said, I think that it's a very good thing that Shallan was a prominent character in this book. Of the "main three" protagonists thusfar, I find Shallan to be the most interesting and well-written by a pretty wide margin. While Brandon generally struggles with "show, don't tell" character development, I think his writing of Shallan demonstrates some of the best signs of how much he's improved over the years. 

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but across all three Stormlight books so far, I've struggled the most getting into Dalinar's chapters, and I'm a little relieved that his flashback book is done and out of the way. It's going to get really interesting moving forward as we next have two books with flashbacks devoted to characters outside of the "main three". 

[Chozo]

Shallan has been my least favorite of the main POV characters.  Nevertheless, I didn't find myself seriously objecting to how heavily she was featured in this book.  Maybe it was  because she was typically in very interesting situations.  Like for many readers, the split personality disorder thing was a bit grating for me.  But somehow my overall perception of her improved during this book.  I guess her split personality disorder doesn't bother me as much as her previous flood of irritating (to me) "humor".

In short I was fine with the balance, and I am not team Shallan.  This book was just outstanding.

Personally, I need more Jasnah.  She is my favorite character.  I think she hasn't quite gotten her due so far.

[StormingTexan he/him]

Shallan is such a train wreck I cant help but enjoy every time she is on screen. I didn't really like her much in tWoK but liked her a lot on WoR and that continued with OB. That being said through part 1 and 3 she did seem to be steeling the spotlight a bit but other than that I felt like this was completely Dalinar's book especially part 5 he owned it. 

[Willow]

While on one hand I think her story was very complicated, and needed a large number of pages, it might have been interesting to see part of her development from an outside point of view. Especially since Shallan is, frankly, a very unreliable narrator. I have always thought a comment Brandon Sanderson made about her sense of humor was interesting; many of the people she tells jokes to only laugh not because her joke was really funny, but because she's above them in rank, and they kind of have to. I always find this sort of dissonance interesting in a book.

Besides that, I think the Shallan and Kaladin viewpoints were out of balance. Kaladin really took a backseat during this book, and he's my favourite viewpoint in the Stormlight archive, with Dalinar in second place.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Willow

[Calyx]

33 minutes ago, Chozo said:

Personally, I need more Jasnah.  She is my favorite character.  I think she hasn't quite gotten her due so far.

Unlike you, Shallan is my favorite of the main characters, but I am in total agreement that we need more Jasnah. I want a lot of Jasnah/Shallan scenes (not to mention Ivory/Pattern, which I can't help but think would be hilarious) in the next book.

[maxal she/her]

I thought her story took too much of the main narrative. I don't mind so much the number of chapters she has, I mind her story being too focus on her personality issue, which I find heavy to read and slow going. I also thought it was too independent from the other character, Shallan being only about Shallan. I have the same commentary about Kaladin and Dalinar: every single of their chapters are about them and just them. In comparison 3/4 of Adolin's chapters aren't about him, but about others. This lack of inter-character inter-action and dependency definitely impacted my level of enjoyment into the book.

While I loved the flashback, I also thought Dalinar's present say story was a tad boring: it was just him having the same talk over and over again with the same people. It got repetitive and old very quickly. He barely inter-acted with his sons and his sole focus on foreign politic was.... well, it was boring to read. 

This being said, I might be an odd reader I I found the main characters arcs to be the least interesting within the book.

[bdoble97]

@maxal this is the 1st commet I hace seen of yours. Ypu propbly already have stated you thoughts and opinion of Adolin in OB but I would love to know your thoughts.  You were the first person I thought of when I I thought Adolin was going to get killed by the fused right before Maya saved him.  When reading that section I literally said oh Maxal is going to be pissed

[maxal she/her]

50 minutes ago, bdoble97 said:

@maxal this is the 1st commet I hace seen of yours. Ypu propbly already have stated you thoughts and opinion of Adolin in OB but I would love to know your thoughts.  You were the first person I thought of when I I thought Adolin was going to get killed by the fused right before Maya saved him.  When reading that section I literally said oh Maxal is going to be pissed

I have posted my thoughts into various threads. Here is probably not the place to write them in details, but here is brief overview.

For one, I already knew Adolin survived the book, so I wasn't worried when the Fused injured him, I was mostly anxious to see how Brandon would play. I actually liked the idea, I do think injuries add to the tension and I love when characters have them. Maya was great, but the scene could have been more emotional: I have come to see it as a weakness in Brandon, as a writer, he tends to under-play several of the most emotive scenes. Based on my limited knowledge of gut wounds, Brandon seems to have gotten it right, so I was pleased with this.

For second, I thought Adolin was both a hit and a miss into this book. My perspective is Brandon shoved him into the background for most of the story, only dragging him out of it whenever he needed someone steady and reliable to take over. Very little of his viewpoints serve his character development: most are him doing stuff, accomplishing him without much hardship nor difficulty. He is completely immune to trauma, angst and events: everything rubs off him like water on the back of a duck. I disliked this as I didn't find it relatable nor plausible. I also hated how he disappeared for 500 pages only to come back as a comical relief and a goof ball. I felt there was little cohesion in between his early chapters and the later ones.

For third, while I loved Maya and this small arc, I felt happening without much character development for Adolin makes it less powerful then it could have been. Readers are still rehearsing the same discussions as they did prior to OB's release. Adolin's character motivations aren't clear enough, his mental state is never explored or so briefly it doesn't really count as real character development, his potential as an Edgedancer is not explored significantly enough and most readers still believe he is going down towards an evil path still because he murdered Sadeas.

For fourth, Brandon absolutely did not deal with Sadeas in a satisfying way. He made the murder matter to the main narrative, but he did not make the fact Adolin is the culprit matter. It made Adolin come across as "perfect" as he does not suffer consequences, not even internal ones as his character doesn't seem to care he murdered Sadeas. This has some readers argue he is a sociopath or a repressed Blackthorn. While I found those ideas extremely far-fetched, I remain annoyed at Brandon for not having taken the time to write a better story arc for Adolin. 

So that's about it in about s brief as I can.

[bdoble97]

@maxal  love eading your comments thanks

[Llarimar he/him]

17 minutes ago, maxal said:

Maya was great, but the scene could have been more emotional: I have come to see it as a weakness in Brandon, as a writer, he tends to under-play several of the most emotive scenes. 

I very much agree with this.  I think it's kind of overly fastidious to find anything wrong with Brandon's writing since for the most part it's basically perfect, but his emotional resolutions can be very unsatisfying.  He writes incredible action scenes, but his writing doesn't often dig deeper into really thought-provoking themes or emotional dialogues - I almost never stop and say, "Wow, that was so profound, I want to go back and read that again."  

Adolin as a character lacks emotional resonance, and I thought his relationship with Maya really could have been an opportunity to show a deeper side of him but Brandon doesn't capitalize on it.

Another example of this I can think of comes from Warbreaker:

Spoiler

When Siri and Vivenna meet each other at the end of the story, the reunion is so anticlimactic and disappointing.  I remember being totally underwhelmed by their reunion, so much that it almost ruined the book for me.  I kept imagining an emotional reunion and a long, heartfelt conversation between the two of them, where they both reflect on how they've grown, but instead Siri just has some giggly Barbie line like "That's so kind of you, but I don't need saving!" (can't remember if that's the exact quote), and then they separate and the book ends a few pages later.  This for me is a perfect example of how the action scenes are incredible, but the emotional scenes that follow them are often very lackluster and thinly written.

But to get back to the topic of Shallan, I did think that a little bit too much time was spent on he in Oathbringer.  Some of her chapters in Kholinar, for example, could have been removed - her food-stealing heists and interactions with the beggars really felt unnecessary.  One of my problems with Shallan is that she's such a cluttered character, and it gets very exhausting to read.  No matter how much progress her story arc seems to be making, she's so scatterbrained and frenetic that you really don't feel like she's making any progress emotionally.  I still felt like Shallan is confused, disturbed child by the end of Oathbringer, who can't acknowledge her past and can't connect with other people - if anything, she's grown more isolated and strange by the end of the book.  

1 hour ago, Willow said:

While on one hand I think her story was very complicated, and needed a large number of pages, it might have been interesting to see part of her development from an outside point of view. Especially since Shallan is, frankly, a very unreliable narrator.

I also agree with this.  The only person who thinks deeply about Shallan besides Shallan herself is Kaladin and sometimes Jasnah, but they don't understand her very well and they really only look at the most superficial layer of her personality.  I think Brandon does this very well, with writing how a character perceives themself versus how other people perceive them, but it gets a bit frustrating with Shallan because almost her entire story arc takes place inside of her own mind, isolated from other characters, and so her relationships with other characters often feel very stagnant and underdeveloped.  

[Willow]

39 minutes ago, Llarimar said:

But to get back to the topic of Shallan, I did think that a little bit too much time was spent on he in Oathbringer.  Some of her chapters in Kholinar, for example, could have been removed - her food-stealing heists and interactions with the beggars really felt unnecessary.  One of my problems with Shallan is that she's such a cluttered character, and it gets very exhausting to read.  No matter how much progress her story arc seems to be making, she's so scatterbrained and frenetic that you really don't feel like she's making any progress emotionally.  I still felt like Shallan is confused, disturbed child by the end of Oathbringer, who can't acknowledge her past and can't connect with other people - if anything, she's grown more isolated and strange by the end of the book. 

Shallan has so much going on that sometimes she feels like she's very focused on herself (she has a good reason, but like you said, it's a lot of dense information). Maybe this is exacerbated because she's looking at things from a different (researcher's) perspective, such as when she was studying spren in Kholinar when all the others were discussing something else. This gives us interesting information, but it means she's very rarely discussing things with other people, making her feel isolated even when she's in a group.

41 minutes ago, Llarimar said:

I also agree with this.  The only person who thinks deeply about Shallan besides Shallan herself is Kaladin and sometimes Jasnah, but they don't understand her very well and they really only look at the most superficial layer of her personality.  I think Brandon does this very well, with writing how a character perceives themself versus how other people perceive them, but it gets a bit frustrating with Shallan because almost her entire story arc takes place inside of her own mind, isolated from other characters, and so her relationships with other characters often feel very stagnant and underdeveloped.

This also works the other way. We saw Kaladin from a lot of different outside perspectives, and the difference between how Shallan perceives Kaladin, and how Rock does is rather staggering. Bridge Four, I think, has a better idea of who Kaladin is as a person than some of the others (Adolin, Shallan) do. It's interesting storytelling, but frustrating. I felt on occasion that Oathbringer had so much stuff happening that there was very little time to talk, especially in Kaladin's, Adolin's and Shallan's storylines. They were always rushing off somewhere.

[Andy92]

I enjoyed reading Dalinar's chapters the most in this book, so after a while the Shallan PoV chapters did start to get a little tiresome for me. Dalinar just had such an interesting story for me, and I loved reading about how his past tied into his present. 

I think Kaladin was the main character in this book whose story felt a little more...stagnant? He struggled with saying his fourth ideal, and he had important moments in the book, but I didn't see his character moving either forwards or backwards much. Shallan was arguably getting worse in this book, suffering from her split-personas, but there was still a lot of substance to be taken away from that.

So for me, Dalinar was the highlight of this book. I didn't enjoy either Shallan or Kaladin's arcs as much as I did in the previous two books. I do see what you mean about how it felt like Shallan dominated a lot of screen time, but a lot of Dalinar's PoV chapters had to be dedicated to his flashbacks. That's just how these books are set up. 

[Nathrangking he/him]

I needed a reason to enjoy shallan's character she was not impressive at all in WoR if not for the fact that I had to read the whole book I would not have a read her chapters I was bored with her arc and character. In WoR we get a story that is slightly more interesting. but not by much. We get very quickly that her life at home was horrific, but again and again  the story felt the need to compound it. It was a bit much and did little to improve her arc. Her ghostblood story was ok, but again it was trying to have it every way. She's traumatized, but she's strong. Nope next second she's week the story could not make up its mind. Oathbringer made her interesting gave her psychological depth and really made me want to read her chapters. The word count was enough to really bring out the weakness and trauma that the story was trying but failed to communicate. End of Rant

[eshu]

People think Kalladin gets too much attention but this character... it's like there are three new topics a day about her on these boards. Readers who love her really love her and those who don't... well you get the picture. Unfortunately for my reading experience of OB I'm in the latter. She's a very subjective character in that one's ability to enjoy her seems dependent on whether one finds her "charming/precocious" or "obnoxious/annoying" (guess which one I think she is). 

Which is a shame because I do like how her inner conflict - which plays out like a cognitive maelstrom of trauma, repression and dissociation - compliments her powerset. However, everything else about her does my head in; from the banal melodrama of her love triangle, to her taking prominence in other peoples POVs and the forced adoration she receives from other characters (as if the author is saying love her cause they do - she may be self loathing but isn't she a grand actor that's why she's a lightweaver *wink*).

Funnily enough (and poignant to the topic at hand), to me she's the character most representative of Mr Sanderson's writing. In that the contributing factors behind her characterisation have been meticulously put together (backstory, motivations etc. which equate to his near flawless worldbuilding and thematic investure). But, this all culminates  in, to me, dramatically unfulfilling interactions and development as her story resolution (and that of her world at large) play out like a CW/Marvel movie cross over i.e. entertaining but disposable. 

That last paragraph sounds harsh but it really isn't. Marvel is a blockbuster monolith and CW shows have some of the most dedicated fanbases going, but for those who don't love those things the very reasons why the fans love it are the same things which turn others off. An apt metaphor for a marmite (either love her or hate her) character like Shallan.

[Aminar]

She's the only main female PoV. In order to keep the series inviting for readers who prefer female PoV's(a good chunk of readers as a whole) she needs to have a major part. Especially given the distance that has to be kept from Jasnah in order to keep the right perceptions of her strength and the way Vorin society sidelines a lot of women. Kal has had two books where he took largely center stage and Dalinar still had way more time than her because it is his book. (Ignoring the flashbacks is a pointless metric.) 

Why is this a problem to you? Or even noteworthy? You're basically just complaining she got more screen time than the person who up till now has had by far the most screen time. Kaladin. 

[Vissy]

Shallan could've used even more screentime in OB, if you ask me.