Rhythm of War Decompression Chat **SPOILERY AFFF**
It has been 12 hours since I finished Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson.
While I am decompressing, I need to let out my thoughts.
I will start with what I did not like, just to get it out of the way.
I did not like Venli.
Maybe not "dislike" Venli as a character, per se, but I just felt like so much of her stuff was forced on us.
Like all of her flashback chapters.
That didn’t even start until page 600.
I just don’t understand the need for that.
I’ve spoken before, and I’ll probably say it again, about how I worry that Brandon Sanderson is going to force all of the books in the Stormlight Archive to be over 1,000 pages.
My opinion on that is:
If it works, then okay.
If it doesn’t, please be okay with that.
As of this posting, I just started re-reading Eye of the World. It’s the only book of the Wheel of Time series I’ve read, and I’m out to finish them all over this next year. While I can already see the influence of this on Brandon’s own work — particularly considering the fact that Brandon finished that series — this was just the first time I felt like there was too much expository information.
Especially considering the fact this information is basically stuff we already know from Eshonai.
I understand how he changed things around, how he moved some stuff up to Words of Radiance that has, in turn, made that book so much better. To me, there’s changes I feel he should have made here in Rhythm of War that would have matched up to that. It isn’t that I think there’s nothing interesting about Venli or the singers or anything, I just felt like there was too much of it, and —
All of the flashbacks in this book should have been either Raboniel or Navani.
If we even needed the flashbacks at all. Considering that they didn’t start until —
In my chapter by chapter notes, I even mentioned our first meeting with Venli in Chapter 14 and said it would have been better suited as an interlude chapter.
So, that’s how I felt about her from the start in this book.
But Raboniel or Navani, I think, would have been a much more suitable “main” character that has all of the extra flashbacks for us. If flashbacks are going to continue in the series, I guess maybe I’d like to start seeing more than one character in that regard? You know, we didn’t see Venli’s stuff in here until the later portion, but if all of that was in the first half of the book, and Raboniel or Navani had had the second half flashbacks, I think that would have been good. Especially if the amount of what was used with Venli was still used, but half of that space was just taken from her and moved to another character.
By the end, I just did not care. And I may feel differently on a reread, we will see. Right now, I have basically read one Stormlight Archive book a year — each December — since 2017, so I haven’t reread any of them yet. I wasn’t really planning on doing so until at least the first half of the 12-book arc was done.
There’s also all these livestreams and extra things that I know big Sanderson fans are all over, and I haven’t watched any of them just yet because — this is my decompress of what I went through in that book, because it was very intense in certain parts, but I am not quite done venting before I start talking about what I did like — which is a lot.
I just heavily struggled with the POV hopping in chapters.
I feel like usually, it only really happens at the end, when there’s, like, so much happening that everything just moves really quickly and flows together.
For me, it didn’t feel like that in this book.
There were so many times when I just felt like it was jumping all over the place. It felt right at the end when everything was kind up coming to a head, but especially at the beginning when we’re first coming back with our characters, I just wanted to take the time to invest in all of their storylines from the beginning.
I tried to like it, but ultimately, I struggled with it. I had a lot of talks with Lezlie over at The Nerdy Narrative about this. She liked it, because she said that usually we go so much time between characters, but I guess I’m just used to that from all fantasy books like this that have so many characters. I mean, could you imagine if one chapter in Game of Thrones had Arya, Cersei, and Daenerys all at once?
That’s how I felt when that happened in this book.
There’s some big vents about it in my chapter by chapters, but it was not something that worked for me. I can appreciate anybody who disagrees and enjoyed it, but for me, it made a lot of the story a little more jarring. Admittedly — even in my notes — I wondered if my keeping of said notes made that less enjoyable. There’s every chance that is the truth, it’s just that I had to stop every single time the POV hop happened to recap what just happened so I could keep everything straight, and that ultimately slowed down a lot of my reading experience and pulled me out of the story every single time. My brain may move at 2 speed, but I don’t like getting pulled out of the story that often like that.
I can appreciate the cinematic quality to it, how it was maybe written more as a scene in a movie or show would be, but oscillating between characters like that works better in the movies for a reason. So much more happens in the written word, and it just takes a second to re-invest in a completely different headspace.
But on to some good stuff.
Let’s face it: Brandon Sanderson is a killer writer.
Ultimately, he could rewrite the telephone book and make it an incredible masterpiece.
My issues with the book aside, there were many many times when I was on the edge of my seat waiting for what in the hell was about to happen.
That was part of my biggest issue with Venli, was because literally every other storyline was just so much more interesting that any one of them would have been a far superior choice to follow more closely.
Let me start with Kaladin:
Listen to me, people of Roshar, and you listen to me well:
Y’all need to back to f**k up off of my man, Kaladin.
I’m bout to pull a Bastian and Never-ending Story this bitch, join up in Bridge Four, and whomp some ass, okay?
I was so stressed out with him the whole time.
But I loved everything that was going on with Kaladin in regard to the soldiers and mental health and the effects of war. Kaladin is one of the mental health storylines that I really appreciated from this book. I live across the street from a military base, and I have known many soldiers who have suffered from PTSD and I thought that was all handled very well in this book. From Kaladin losing his ranking all the way to him just… Y’all know he got wild over there at the end, okay?
So stressed out.
This Pursuer was getting on my nerves, Moash and them visions and all that other stuff going on. Kaladin thinking he wasn’t good enough?
You come to me when you don’t feel good enough, Mr. Kaladin.
All you Adolin lovers can have him, I’ll stick with the real man of the series, thanks.
But the Kaladin and Syl storyline — everything about the bondship of spren and the idea of slavery and choices and all of that was just incredible in this book, it really was.
I’m interested to see what will become of my unbeatable hubby in the future books, because I’m telling you, y’all people of Roshar need to
STEP. ASIDE.
You leave my man alone, and if you don’t, I will continue to enjoy watching him destroy your ass.
Except I’m totally scared he’s going to go down a path of destruction. I have in my notes when he was holding the body of Teft that this felt like an Anakin Skywalker holding his mama moment. That was when he turned in the films, and I worried that that was a major turning point for Kaladin in this, and not for the better.
I’m so stressed out.
I need for Kaladin to just…
Come home to papa, I’ll take care of it all. And if Brando Sando hurts you, I’ll write you a fan fiction, honey.
Now let’s talk about NAVANI:
The QUEEN.
I LOVE HER SO MUCH.
And I felt so bad for her throughout this story with everything Raboniel was doing, but damn did I love watching all of that unfold between those two.
They sincerely had the strongest storyline of the book, as a whole, together. That’s why I so badly wish it had been one of them that had gotten more of the focus, because the tension here was just so formidable and incredible and I loved every second of it.
Raboniel killing her daughter?!
Everything with The Sibling!?
Just, everything going on in here was so wild with Navani, and I think she did a great job protecting her people. I loved the approach to her as a scholar in this book, and I love the way her mind works. I’ve enjoyed her in all of the other books, but I really think she strengthened as a character, as whole, for me in this book.
So good.
My love for Navani only increases my bitterness toward the focus on Venli, but I have to stop whining about that at some point.
I’m sorry.
Dalinar. Jasnah. Stormfather.
I love Daddy Dalinar, I love Jasnah, and I’m happy they were here.
Jasnah is a great character, and always has been. I love the way she’s depicted when it comes to being a feminist and a leader and a progressive thinker. She fights her own battles, and she is not a character to be messed with, I’m telling you.
I really liked the strengthening of Dalinar and Jasnah as uncle and niece in this book, and I look forward to see the familial bonds continue with the Kholin family.
Especially considering how much of a boss Navani is.
Okay, so, let’s talk about Daddy Dalinar and the contest of champions.
Is this going to end the war with Odium?
Who will that champion be?
Is Daddy Dalinar going to be successful?
Is my heart going to explode?!
Just so much going on with all of this, and it’s like I’m still processing.
I went into this thinking it was Adolin that had to do that, but he’s on a whole different thing that I’ll get to in a minute.
Actually, let’s talk about Shallan and Adolin.
Okay, Shallan:
Veil. Radiant. The Three. And what was she at the end?
I honestly loved the way Shallan and her mental health is depicted in this book. Toward the end, I had made a comment about how she started to remind me of Sibil. Sibil was a book I read in high school psychology class about a woman who suffered from sixteen different personalities. It was also a movie with Sally Field back in the 80’s, but the book… stuck with me.
Shallan reminded me so much about certain parts of that book during Sibil’s interviews with the different psychologists.
Her fear of her past, everything about not wanting Adolin to know her secrets, all of it.
I loved it.
She’s sneaky as hell and she kind of got herself into a bit of a mess with everything in this book, but I think it was all handled really well and I think we’re going to go back to Shallan just being Shallan in the future books.
With her man Adolin by her side.
I’ve already barfed from the romance, but let’s talk about this little trial and everything going on with the honorspren and the highspren and all the spren.
My lord.
I’m just stressed out from this book, y’all.
The Adolin storyline was pretty minuscule in this story in comparison to everything else, I think, but the Trial by Witness was a very intense part at the end, there.
I’m just so stressed!
I don’t know how else to say anything.
Moash:
Is a dick. That’s all I have to say.
And Taravangian becoming Odium?
I’m so stressed out.
What is going to happen in Book 5?!
As for me, I think that’s all I have to say as far as finishing this book twelve hours ago.
