#oathbringer

There's something so Beautiful in how fucking Weird it is. We've spent over 2000 pages by now with present/adult Dalinar who has clearly had more than one good fucking think on who he used to be and who he Wants to be (which we also know is controversial because Sadeas et al. keeps mocking him for turning soft, but we can clearly tell from how Dalinar talks about his past self that he was less than proud of that shit in hindsight) and honestly, even If you know that Oathbringer is Dalinar's backstory book

Holy shit that first chapter is Perfection. It's so creepy. It's so Weird. It feels weird. It feels Wrong. And it's amazing.

Like this is without a doubt the most straight up bloodthirsty we've seen Anyone in the series act as far as I can remember, because a lot of Stormlight characters, even when they're doing A Fuckton of Murder are at best either regretting it but doing it anyways because they have to or justified by the ends to their means, but flashback Dalinar is just here to kill and have a good time, and having a good time for him Is killing

It's fucking Brutal. He's overly violent for the sake of it, he's making damn sure to kill Everyone even if they're fleeing or have given up or are literally begging him for mercy. He doesn't even care about the fucking politics. As he himself says, Gavilar points, he slaughters.

It's essentially a completely different character, and yet you can still 100% see all the modern Dalinar stuff, the fact that he clearly has a habit of recruiting enemy soldiers he thinks are good is actually SUCH a fantastic piece of information KNOWING that he takes a chance on Kaladin and co just because they're loyal and well-organised and Have Something Guiding them, and even if he's "worse" nowadays, it's not like Dalinar isn't still like. top 3 fighters on every battlefield at Worst.

So it's absolutely Dalinar. And that's why it's so creepy because it Shouldn't be Dalinar. But it is. We know all of this is supposedly true about him and yet when we finally see it is is 100% brutality no bars held from start to finish to the point where it almost feels charicaturized

But it isn't. And that's why it's fucking Great.

Absolutely amazing opening backstory chapter actually

finally finished rereading this. i had quite a difference experience with WoR the second time around, granted it's now been like 3 years since the first read... random out of order thoughts, with massive caveat that WoR was not my favorite stormlight book before and it still isn't 😂 (RoW is my favorite because it has the most screentime for the Fused. no Fused in WoR? worthless. #teamsingers)

there is simultaneously more happening in this than i remember and also less happening. not sure how that's possible. the book also takes place over a way shorter period of time than i remember? i think it's like 2-3 months of in-world time, max? which is CRAZY

also it ends SO ABRUPTLY

i didn't realize how little focus dalinar actually has in this book, he was my favorite character after my first read of WoK so i was probably hyperfocused on him when i first read this XD he's just kinda in the background for a lot of this though which is funny

i now understand what the ghostbloods are doing 5% more than i did before, which is to say i still don't know what the ghostbloods are doing at all. and i never will

i KIND OF understand what amaram was doing now (previously had no fucking idea lmao). in general amaram is kind of just an empty character to me who only exists to be a villain and i don't really understand what's going on with him, nor do i care. contrast this with sadeas who's fucking awesome and i would take 87 chapters of his POV. rip sadeas 5ever in my heart

rereading the book did not resolve any of my complicated thoughts about the elhokar assassination plotline and politics thereof, if anything they are now more complicated 🤷‍♀️ that storyline is so FRUSTRATING because it could have had an interesting and coherent conflict over the right way to pursue change and justice but it doesn't. there are legitimate good arguments for why assassinating elhokar is wrong but instead of making any of them the book just makes the stupidest fucking arguments of all time. AGGHHHHH!!

i should probably find something better to read. not the first time i have thought this while rereading this book

the book also once again failed to convince me that moash and kaladin were 'good friends' in any particular way before All The Stuff Happened, which is a shame because i love the idea of that and think it makes for a better narrative. it just isn't established enough for me to buy into it in terms of what's actually on the page

i totally buy moash having a crush on kaladin, though

i wish we got more time with all the individual bridge four guys, i always enjoy when they show up

i want to read more about rlain. i need more rlain. i can't remember if he gets a lot of screentime in oathbringer, it's been too long since i read that. i hope so, but i doubt it

i didn't really care about shallan and adolin's relationship the first time reading this, i still kind of don't but i did find myself slightly more charmed by their dynamic the second time around, surprisingly

tho whenever i have to read brandon making them kiss i do kind of want to go jump headfirst in the river

for all that i may have been occasionally picking out kadolin breadcrumbs while reading, i actually don't really get the appeal of kadolin in WoR based on what's actually on the page. like, i get the pieces of what could work and what made people ship it at the time, the ingredients if you will, but the way the actual book is mixing the ingredients is just... not working for me to want to ship them. the only two brief moments that kinda work for me are the duel and the chapter when kaladin gets out of prison, the rest... mmm. possibly if adolin had gotten called out for his racism even One time it would have worked. LOL

am i right to assume that shallan being plural wasn't planned as of this book? because i'm not picking up on it in WoR at all, not even in a 'she's repressing and not thinking about it' way. i just don't see it in the text. and her pov as veil does not feel like a different character to me at all 🤷‍♀️

i also can't decide whether i think Testament was something planned as of this book or added in later

lot of 'strategically but arbitrarily withholding information for a dramatic reveal' happening in this book. which is in all stormlight books (dare i say, all books to some extent), it just really stood out to me this time around, and some of it comes across as REALLY arbitrary when you're re-reading

for example shallan sending spanreed messages to adolin in prison but specifically not mentioning what he's doing in her internal monologue so it can be dramatically revealed later

also the fact that renarin doesn't get any povs in this book even though he's technically pivotal to the story because it would spoil all the secrets if he had a pov

i thought there were more scenes in this book of renarin integrating with bridge four than there actually are. there are basically NO scenes of that actually. i fear i may have integrated dannidorian's fic ash's holes so deeply into my understanding of renarin and bridge four that i just assumed that was what was going on in the actual book, needless to say, IT WAS NOT

go read that fic it's awesome

all of the politics aside because that is a whole complicated mess to get into, one of my perennial issues with stormlight--which gets worse as the series goes on--is that things often don't feel like they get enough time to breathe. insane thing to say about a book series that's so long and often has parts that really really drag, but... oftentimes the worldbuilding will introduce something so interesting, and instead of actually digging in and exploring that to its full potential, the book just moves onto the next thing like it's lost interest in its own concepts. i don't know. i feel like there are enough interesting worldbuilding concepts in stormlight for 10 series of books, and most of them get what feels like a cursory glance before we just move on. the book always leaves me wanting more, but not necessarily in a good way because i never feel convinced i'm actually going to get more of the interesting stuff (see: warlight, and many other such cases)

maybe it's a me problem, maybe my interests are just too divergent from brandon's. like, i would have loved to see all the stuff about how the knight radiant orders grew after oathbringer and how they chose to organize themselves and how they utilized or didn't the resources of urithiru, and how they ramped up their militarization while the war was already in progress and so on and so forth but I GUESS WE DON'T GET TO SEE THAT

anyway

i will let it go, and instead of thinking about the canon i will write bridge four porn

that's all

Anyway here are my favorite quotes !

just a passage I liked so much I borrowed it as inspiration for the next chapter of my long fic

Bridge Four 4 Lyfe

Kaladin: if you’re not in my direct line of sight at all times I’m going to fucking kill my self

he is so funny, is he a human being or a service dog?

'A simple word with a world embedded inside'… A great quote despite the fact that Wit pisses me off all the time (character who knows all the lore but strategically never reveals it is a type i HATE)

King shit

Nothing but salvation itself discovered in the depths of those chasms!

Feeling validated to have made the Dawnsinger religious greeting in my fic be “winds carry you”

Surprisingly astute for once, Elhokar manages to describe the entire problem with Alethkar in one sentence

Yes, the gap between lighteyes and darkeyes IS the kingdom

I <3 Found Family

Oh my god he actually got it

also hilarious that he's referring to himself like he's king while saying this

Gay

I LOVE (slightly codependent) FOUND FAMILY

okay i will allow one (1) kadolin breadcrumb. ONE

BRIDGE FOUR 4 LIFE!!!!!

also renarin saluting dalinar really cracks me up

most of shallan and kaladin's argument in the chasms really really REALLY frustrates me, but i do like this ONE passage

thinking about thoughts on the 'glories of war' in this series but i haven't fully put them all together yet....

i'm not a huge fan of all the historical flashbacks in the books (like in WaT), what i always enjoy most is when stormlight engages with the past like this, with characters attempting to grapple with their country's legacy and mythology. that's always SUPER fun

the less stuff stormlight clarifies about roshar's 'true' past, the more it forces the characters to look through a warped lens, the more i enjoy it

you know what? hell yeah

Dalinar Experiencing True Wonder got me kind of emotional i can't even lie

BRIDGE FOURRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

they should fuck about this

also this is an insane thing to say. or rather think. 'death didn't bother kaladin, but failing dalinar..' HELLO?

why didn't they fuck about it

you know what? hell yeah (x2)

'strong enough' is an interesting way of thinking about it though. do we usually think of miracles as something you need to be 'strong' to earn? wouldn't it usually be... righteous enough, devout enough, faithful enough, good enough, something like that? alethkar free yourself from Might Makes Right mentality challenge level impossible

wait why am i doing close analysis of stormlight archive, that's pointless

based. singer victory forever!!!

IF ONLY THIS WENT ANYWHERE

(deep inhale) you know what, it's fine. i'm calm. it's fine, i don't even care

Showed my girlfriend how thickums Oathbringer is