Question Stormlight Archive Book 3 - Oathbringer Discussion

Well folks, for those of you who follow Brandon Sanderson, one of THE greatest authors of our age (no offense Whateley authors, I love you... but SANDERSON!), his third entry in his personal Super awesome mega epic Cosmere Tentology (yeah, i know, wrong word) the Stormlight Archive arrived tuesday. I purchased it wednesday and finished it a few hours ago (work and sleep, why must you get in my way?).

SPOILERS! OH GOD THE SPOILERS AHEAD. SO MANY SPOILERS. SPOILERS. MORE SPOILERS. ALL THE SPOILERS

YOU WERE WARNED.
Also I apologize in advice for all the yelling.









So yeah, discussion time.

Ahem.

OH MY BLOODY STORMS! Did Adolin almost do what I think he almost did? Is he... is that bloody beautiful storming boy reviving a dead shard? Maya?

If he is... Good lord, there will be no human honored as he is honored. No name respected as he is respected. Not for Spren at least. He'll finally have outdone Stormblessed himself.

Also he got the girl. Hell yeah. WOOHOO! Go Adolin! Go Shallan! Hold it together there honey, you can do this. You are you, and that's all you ever need to be. Everything else is just a really good mask. Remember that.

Ahem, moving on.

Dear lord this book. Kaladin almost gets shardplate! DALINAR IS AWESOME. He almost bought it. I almost believed Jasnah killed Renarin and Dalinar fell. But something in me just... tugged. No way in damnation was Sanderson gonna let Dalinar fall there. No, not happening. Wasn't gonna. Nope.

Rock... Rock has family. Rock is a happy good husband. Rock is a Horneater Lord guy. ROCK USED A SHARDBOW WITHOUT SHARDPLATE. Poor Rock. I love you man, hang in there.

TEFT! Keep it together, you glorious bearded loon of a Windrunner. You did it. You SAVED THEM. You pulled one off! YES! GOOD ON YOU TEFT!

LOPEN! MY LOVE! YOU DID IT!

<.<
>.>
Azure is Vivenna. That is all.


Elhokar... I will remember you as a hero, murdered by a man who could have been so much... and become something else... Moash... you've finally died. What took your place is... man oh man.

Can we take a moment in all this and talk about Venli bonding a Spren? That's a thing now. Not bonding the way other parshmen bond spren... she bonded a spren as a SURGEBINDER. That's a thing now.

I really thought Eshonai lived.

I'm sure I forgot something. It'll come to me. That's enough for now. GOOD LORD ALMIGHTY is that enough for now.

So... what were ya'll thoughts?

Now that I've finally finished the book, my thoughts:


I agree with pretty much everything you've said, so I won't repeat it.

Truest line in the book: "Sequels always have to be bigger"

Lift continues to be hilarious and awesome (pun intended). Actually, pretty much everything involving the Azish is hilarious. Watching them coo over Jasnah's essay, finding out that their parshmen filed a class-action lawsuit. Gay marriage is perfectly legal, but does require extra paperwork.

The fact that the person Adolin trusts most of all in the city is his tailor is great, and also makes a lot of sense.

How much you want to bet that the Cryptic that Wit rescuses at the end was the spren that Elhokar was about to bond?

It turns out that Syl is a princess!

Also, the Unmade are really creepy. The one who wants to switch sides is interesting, though.

The Stormfather is Honor's child. The Nightwatcher is Cultivation's. Is the Sibling an Odium spren? How does that work for Bondsmithing?

If the fourth Oath grants you Shardplate, what does the fifth grant? I think it gives you constant access to stormlight. We've seen that saying an Oath produces stormlight, so it doesn't seem too far-fetched.

A well-lit Radiant is scary-indestructible. Shallan took a crossbow bolt in the brain. That's Regen 6 at least. It amuses me to realize that the poisoning attempt in WoK could not possibly have succeeded as long as Jasnah had stormlight on hand (although she would have had to reveal herself as a Radiant)

Finally, Talenel is badass. 4,000 years of torture on his own, after the other Heralds were breaking after less than a decade.

There is certainly a lot to take in. Especially as I only picked up the Cosmere a few months ago. But while a lot of light has been shed, it only raises more questions.

Humanity being the Voidbringers doesn't altogether surprise me, but there's surely more to it, as they and the Singers ended up trading gods.

Azure was an easy pick for me, as thankfully I finished Warbreaker immediately before starting on Oathbringer. As soon as she said "like white on black", I knew.

And then there's some of the smaller stuff, such as the Horneater's supposedly being descendants of the Singers, to the point where at least some of them can see Spren. The fourth volume is going to be big. Really big.

They already invented new book making processes just to publish this. If it gets bigger... oh god.

Iwasforger03 wrote: Can we take a moment in all this and talk about Venli bonding a Spren? That's a thing now. Not bonding the way other parshmen bond spren... she bonded a spren as a SURGEBINDER. That's a thing now.

I really thought Eshonai lived.

What makes you think she didn't? And I don't think she was truly surgebinding. She was doing what Listeners just do all the time.

The Fused are all possessed by the souls of long-dead, insane spren who used to be Listeners when the "Voidbringers" brought Odium to Roshar and the Unmade began corrupting them.

Timbre came from Eshonai's body, and now Velni made a spot for Timbre within her, and in doing so, got back all the old Listener forms, suppressing the corrupted ones. Eshonai was the one who at the end, realized that Stormform and the corrupted spren was how they'd truly lose their people's legacy, and she pushed it away at the very last instant when Adolin kicked her off the cliff.


Aside from that? I kind of felt like this book was a bit of a slog, to be honest. Words of Radiance was much more dynamic. Most of the primary characters didn't get much actual development, more time was spent on them getting more involved with their powers. Shallan is still a bit confused as to who she is, Kaladin actually slid backward, Adolin's convictions have changed very little from his growth in WoR, Danlinar's development was all in flashbacks, and so on.

400,000 words, and there were maybe twenty pages of actual character growth for the primary cast?

Maybe too many Cosmere cameos and oh my Lord I cannot stand Nightblood.

Many of the big reveals were hinted at very heavily in the earlier books, particularly in the chapter openings and other cryptic phrases. It sort of felt like they were just confirming the series of events and histories that readers had already deduced from the hints. It's very much Sanderson's style of a distant and vague hint, strong hint, and then confirmation, but some things felt a bit too foreshadowed. The problem was the first two hints were all in Words of Radiance or Edgedancer.

I liked it a lot, but ultimately Navani was my favorite character throughout this one.

I'm guessing that Lift is Cultivation's champion, since she apparently cannot take in Stormlight in any way but through food and her attitude doesn't care for good or evil. Just allowing for growth versus cutting it short.

That's actually excellent reasoning... except wasn't Timbre from her mate's body?

Nope, hovering around Eshonai's body when they were ordered to recover her shard and plate.

I'll not disagree with that. For a considerable amount of the book - especially Kaladin's perspective, it is largely just establishing the wider resistance against Odium, and setting things up for what follows, I felt.