Benedictify

I didn't say I thought it was bad as-is It's fun to think about what a scene does for the flow of a story, and how it would be in different order. I was wondering what it would be like if you have that same prologue, slice it into pieces and put it elsewhere in the book.

[I also posted this on reddit. I'm curious to see what you all think as well.] How Way of Kings Should Have Begun The novel should have started with Szeth, who "...wore white on the day he was to kill a king." The scene of Aharietiam is confusing, especially to a reader being introduced to the Cosmere with this book, who doesn't understand what happens after death there. It confused me terribly on first reading it and it was my first Sanderson book. It's a steep learning curve to a very complex world. Aharietiam could have been told in epigraphs, perhaps at the starts of the interlude sections. Or it could have been left very ambiguous, another unfolding mystery, so we only gradually learn the truth behind the legends in the present. Another option is through fragments discovered by Shallan and Jasnah. Szeth's scene is an action scene, a very exciting one. It sets up the bizarre nature of Radiant powers, it tells all kinds of clues about the world through incidental details, and it gives us a compelling character sketch, the assassin who kills with tears and regret while descending into madness. What jobs does Kalak's scene do? It establishes the time elapsed, 4,500 years. It establishes the immortality of the Heralds, that there are ten of them. It introduces the Honorblades; though Szeth does that as well. It gives a glimpse of the Desolation wars, that there have been many of them, and the Heralds prepare mankind. And that they are tired and tortured and broken, and they leave Taln behind, alone, to become The Bearer of Agonies. Heralds, Honorblades, repeating Desolations, the Heralds' torture and giving up, Taln stopping the cycle. Actually, you have five parts right there, and you have five parts in the book... I would put one at the end of each part. Then to finish the book, right after seeing the Heralds reluctantly giving him up to be tortured alone at the end of part five, we have Wit's monologue and Taln showing up at Kholinar. That's a bit of whiplash, but the good kind, and a good cliffhanger.

As it turns out,

Good point. However, I wasn't talking about his accents or disguises. In The Lost Metal, On the WoB, I was looking at that one and others. There are some WoB's that suggest he's not entirely sure whether some of those things are savantism or resonances; I posit that Brandon himself doesn't exactly know what's going on, and he's still figuring it out. If that’s true, he should go with my idea

Text color: That is extremely odd, I didn't do that on purpose.....

Wayne can put on a person's hat and see a lot about who they are, and what their life has been like. Gold, allomantically, shows a person's life. Speed bubbles are like time compressed into now. You could interpret a common theme: showing a life compressed into a moment. I think the hat isn't part of the magic, it helps *him* focus his mind on it. We can look at Wax's steel bubble similarly. Iron increasing his weight is almost like pulling the quantity into himself. Iron allomantically is about pulling. The iron pulls his steelpush in to surround him and wraps it around himself; like gathering up the blankets on your bed into a bunch around you. Maybe resonances are like the qualities of each power acting on *each other*. Taking the elements of the metals - pushing and pulling, external and internal, physical/ mental/ enhancement/ time and physical/ mental/ spiritual - and shuffling them like a deck of cards.

Kaladin's Fifth Ideal will be "I will never give up." There will be a new Oathpact, created by Ishar and/or Dalinar. Kaladin will take it onto himself alone, like Taln. He will go to Braize to be tortured, at least til Book 6, if not longer. He is "The Spear That Would Not Break", to quote him during the fight with Amaram in Oathbringer, and he will be the new "Bearer of Agonies," as Taln was.

It’s fun to read your “blog” and hear your reactions I agree, this is a good place to put it! I do think it’s a pattern of his that the middle starts to feel slow. The endings can be pretty spectacular though.

I have a suspicion that the killing of Adonalsium might not be what it sounds like. Maybe they were a willing participant in what happened. A possible foreshadowing of a possibly repeating theme in the Cosmere.

You should do a blog! It’ll be like the youtube videos of people reacting to watching movies they haven’t seen yet

I’m wondering what’s going to happen with Vyre. It seems like there is destined to be a confrontation between he and Kaladin, probably many. Are they turning him into a new supervillain like Amaram? The way Khen and the other parshmen “wanted to be near him” reminded me of the bridgemen’s devotion to Kaladin. Is he taking over from Jezrien in some way, being that he killed him (or trapped him...?) and he has Jez’s Honorblade. Anyway I’m rambling a bit. What do you think Vyre’s role or purpose will be?

If Azure had gone with our heroes back to Urithiru, she would have found “Vasher”, the previous owner of the weapon she’s looking for; and in Thalen City she would have found Szeth

Odium is defeated by the Care Bear Stare

I just realized that the title of each of Brandon's Stormlight books is named after a book relevant in the story. Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer.

Kaladin actually claims responsibility for too much, carrying the weight of everyone who dies and dwelling on his perceived failures. There's a bit of a Moash - Dalinar - Kaladin continuum there.

I noticed recently that Kaladin has a "lighteyes name", and the lighteyes only have their position because of their similarity to the Radiants, while Moash has an ancient Singer's name... interesting. I also noticed (in re-reading Oathbringer) that Moash has a voice in his head saying "it's not your fault", and he embraces that idea, while Dalinar at the Battle of Thaylen Field accepts responsibility for what he did, and is thus able to escape Odium's control. Moash goes further down the revenge path, Kaladin (through the first two books at least) goes through a large transformation around his own feelings of vengeance, choosing to protect instead. It's like holding on to your own ego and what it wants, vs. choosing humility and acceptance

I would say that he doesn't care one whit about the Parshmen, but he sees them as a tool that can change things. Maybe there needs to be a Dalinar / Radiants among the Sons of Honor (aka humans) for him to be able to win the contest to escape? Probably the Fused are angry and insane and that makes them vulnerable to his influence. Plus there's the unmade like the Thrill that he's probably leveraging to move things... Did he create the Unmade? Everyone says they're "of Him". Anyway I'm getting on tangents.

So Soulcasters gradually turn into smoke or rock or whatever they work with; do Elsecallers ever do that? Would the Stormlight-healing undo that...? It might not be considered an "injury", because it's a transformation from one thing into another....

Maybe everyone else but me realized this as soon as the book came out...

...because he's not ready to accept that there are some people he can't save. He keeps trying to save everyone, it's deep down in his personality that he has failed every time he couldn't save someone, as if he killed them himself. Maybe he kills himself a little inside every time he loses someone. (and I just had the thought that Gavinor and Oroden (Kaladin's new little brother) are gonna be best buds. Just sayin.)

I'm now on my third trip through the Stormlight books, I realized that on the night of Gavilar's assassination, at the party, Szeth walks by an old man he thinks is drunk... But it's actually Jezrien himself!!!!!!! He says the same thing at the end of Oathbringer before Moash kills him. An Easter-egg across 3 books... nice

It's like... oh, he wanted to be a Radiant so he just bonded the storming STORMFATHER, that's all, and he just learned how to RECHARGE SPHERES BY HIMSELF, no big deal.... I noticed that too, on my second re-reading of the series, I thought that can't be just a coincidence. I think maybe Dalinar isn't fully aware of the full meaning of what he said.... If not a being called Unity, maybe that's referring to Honor's Perpendicularity in some way...? Also I think Shallan is going to learn how to make her Lightweavings become permanent beings that exist on their own -- totally different topic...

Cool!! So, like, both....?

is Jezrien really *dead* dead, or is he trapped inside the dagger's pommel stone? In either case it seems he won't be able to go to Damnation and do any Oathpacting-torture

Is Dalinar going to become the next Honor? There's something called a shard of Adonalsium involved somehow (but I've only read the three Stormlight books so far....) Is Kaladin (and other folks) gonna end up becoming Heralds in a new Oathpact? Probably they're gonna solve things so they don't need an Oathpact and they can all get along - at least the parsh and the humans, probably not Odium and anyone else though.