I’ve started rereading The Way of Kings and am noticing a few things.
First, the risk that Sanderson took starting it the way he did. Three different time periods and viewpoint characters before the fourth chapter finally gives us a current-time, main character viewpoint. If I was Sanderson’s editor when he was pitching this, I’d be finding the Cenn viewpoint the hardest sell.
The Kelek one is short, hints at vastly powerful forces, ends with the creation of a great mythic lie, and the “4,500 years later” gives things a properly epic feel.
The Szeth one is fantastic - it starts with an iconic line, has an engaging magic battle scene, and sets up a central mystery: why did the Parshendi betray the alliance and have Gavilar assassinated. It explains enough but not too much of the context (mechanics of Szeth’s ‘magic’ powers: yes; details of the concept of Truthless and reasons behind Shin veneration of stone: no).
But the Cenn one has the combined challenges that this isn’t a main character, dies (though we don’t yet know it) at the end of the scene, and isn’t an interesting person in and of himself. If I was the editor, I’d be asking “Why can’t we have the Kaladin POV here?” But the more we see of Kaladin, the clearer it becomes why his introduction had to be done this way. The contrast between Kaladin in the Cenn-POV chapter and the despairing Kaladin in the slave wagon in the next chapter gains its power and drama from two things: the contrast between who Kaladin was then and now, and the contrast between how others see Kaladin and how he sees himself. Kaladin in that battle wouldn’t have seen himself as the heroic, nearly-miraculous figure his soldiers see him as: rescuing Cenn by fighting six-on-one and killing all his enemies in a matter of seconds, then turning into a healer and bandaging his wounds; training his men to operate as a unit unlike anyone else on the battlefield; spending most of his pay on bribing the support staff to evacuate his wounded; bribing other commanders to give him recruits who seemed militarily useless. He’d have taken that for granted. Kaladin (later) reacts to being pretty much miraculously resurrected by despairing and thinking he’s a failure. The switch of perspective at the start is necessary for us to realize early on that the way Kaladin percieves himself does not line up with objective reality or with other people’s perceptions, and necessary for us to realize how impressive he was, and how others reacted to him, before his enslavement. It’s the essential backdrop for all the horrible early chapters in the slave wagons and Bridge 4. But the necessity of that only becomes apparent once the reader has spent a while with Kaladin.
The second thing I’m noticing is that, while on my first read-through I was overwhelmed and not picking up on this, Sanderson does leave us a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. In the first chapter, four people are named: Kalak, Jezrien, Talenel, and Ishar. Then, only a few pages later, Szeth passes the states “depicting the Ten Heralds from ancient Vorin theology”, naming four: “Jezerezah, Ishi, Kelek, Talenelat.” The names are similar enough that it’s possible to put the pieces together. Even in Kaladin’s first chaptet, the mention of windspren stucking things to other things can recall Szeth’s Full Lashings.
Another thing that jumped out at me: in the first chapter, Kelek mentions “red, orange, and violet” blood on the battlefield. Parshendi blood is orange, but who on Roshar has violet blood?
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