I just finished Warbreaker, and I enjoyed it - interesting religion and magic system, lots of fun characters - but I also found it... troubling. I need to rant a bit.
I try not to judge books based on autobiographical details from the author's life ("He's Mormon, so..."), but I can't divorce this book from the context of 2009 America, less than a decade after 9/11. "You thought that ethnic minority was just minding their own business, but actually they're secretly plotting mass violence!"
This is not to say that you can never have a story where an oppressed group reacts with disproportionate violence. That's not my issue here; people do all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. I'm troubled because it felt really flat to me. I don't feel convinced by Bluefingers' motivations, and it's weird that we don't learn of any disagreement among the Pahn Kahl about this devastatingly violent plan. They're just kind of grouped together, which is a great thing to do with an ethnic minority. (That's sarcasm, God King.) I bring up the real-world parallels because, in the absence of convincing characterization, that's where I find myself looking. (As a side note, I'm also a little confused as to how Bluefingers got all the money to orchestrate this scheme.)
My other problem with the book is that it introduces various injustices - the government of Idris neglecting its people, the poverty on the streets of T'Telir - and then just sort of abandons them at the end. I thought Vivenna was going to become a queen or advise Siri or something, and she'd be able to speak towards systemic change because she knows what it's like to be unhoused. Instead, she's just leaving altogether. I like Siri, but I don't think she'll address those problems.
The supposedly heroic acts at the end actually just serve to maintain the status quo. It's obviously good that a world war didn't break out. But it's hard to celebrate the upholding of imperial oppression.
Having read Stormlight, I was honestly really surprised by Warbreaker's ending, because Stormlight is critical of colonialism and occupation! I haven't read Mistborn yet, but I hear that Sanderson also addresses racial and ethnic oppression in that world as though it's, you know, a bad thing. So what's up with Warbreaker?
