warbreaker showed up in the mail today but the poppy war is very late and usps haven't provided a tracking number. hmmm.
full oathbringer review only athlai and gimh will skim read. full spoilers for the book and maybe words of randiance and hero of ages ahead.
this book has convinced me on the series. it's fantastic, easily the best of the three releases.
dalinar's flashback arc has been raved about elsewhere. all i will add is that tanalan goon did everything he could to provoke that response, like jesus man put your pride to one side when it's clear you can't win. do it for your people.
my favourite moment in the book was where dalinar, who in his prime was considered peak alpha male in this society and still has that gravitas, went to see renarin reading and studying in public. what renarin was doing by doing 'girl stuff' in his culture was basically dressing up in a pink tutu and wiggling his bum in western culture while singing in a high, camp voice and big papa dalinar just strolls in and shows legitimate interest in what his son is doing, therefore saying to the wider world this is ok because if dalinar kholin thinks it is worth doing then it must be. alpha af, what a total daddy.
i enjoyed shallan in this book too when the love triangle wasn't being fisted in there. her mental fragmentation was believable, her spren pattern is best spren as always and her gradual taking of the lead in shadesmar was really enjoyable. shadesmar was where she showed some true maturity and did her best to get everyone else out alive. she also made the obviously correct choice in the triangle. my kaladin thoughts are well known but even independent of that, kaladin is not ready to love someone else and the pair would bring out the worst of their mental illness in each other. trust me, i know, i've been there irl.
adolin was a great dude as usual. it's pretty impressive sanderson has taken jock manuel mcchad and made him both a really likeable guy and interesting due to him being an underpowered normie in a world rapidly escalating in supernatural events. his 50kg soaking wet girlfriend could kill him without trying, and this makes his leadership qualities, his ability to be friends with anyone and his fighting skill believable and enjoyable. he would have been op immediately pre-story. i want to be friends with him. i also feel sorry for his dead spren maya and i hope that relationship is explored in future because there is so much potential.
kaladin failed in this book over and over again, and i found him more interesting for it. i still don't like him but it was good to see him brought back down to earth. he's been functional for far too long given his mental state, and him freezing up then being unable to 'let go' later in the book, then failing at the very end was pretty interesting. plus he was a total bro to those parshendi he met, so his hero/martyr complex that borders on narcissistic was more bearable. syl is wrong, the guy needs a hobby, some family time and to make some friends. he's not ready to love someone else when he can't even love himself.
syl improved a lot for me in this book. part of it i think was because she becomes tangible in shadesmar. im finally getting into her character now, and while human-spren comparisons are probably fraught with danger she has the patience of a saint. her character seems more fleshed out than before. i also think, if kaladin is to have a relationship and if spren can even have them, syl-kaladin works once kaladin is on his feet. can you even bang a spren? someone needs to ask this on reddit. im already going to post my kaladin essay on r fantasy in a reasonable way to see how flamed i still get.
lift is moving into the narrative more though she didn't stand out. szeth's emo is balanced nicely by that talking sword who is cheesey but hilarious. jasnah is a pragmatic genocidal psycho. someone needs to off taravangian immediately. i like the kooky heralds. the lopen and rock are still best side characters. poor elhokar.
moving into the broader themes, i loved the reveal that the humans used to be/are the bad guys. it makes sense since i was wondering how the hell they could have evolved in a world that cops a category 5 hurricane every week and what a big dick move to tackle colonialism. that's going to be hard to land for a white author unless he throws traditional endings out the window. his version of satan is interesting but feels very latter day saints. odium being a mix of indulging people not taking responsibility for their actions and getting carried away with their passions is a nice spin but also very christian. not sure i will like the resolution here but odium is interesting so we'll see.
losing so bad in kholinar was also cool. i enjoyed that entire trainwreck. our characters left the city broken failures. perfect.
onto the ending, i understand it's not universally loved in the fandom but i adore it. it was character driven and i called this for dalinar since the end of book 2. it shares elements with hero of ages and i understand it's accused of deus ex machina but i would argue it isn't. the ending wasn't dalinar's temporary demi-god status, the ending was him taking ownership of his war crimes and accepting himself, and that he has and will continue to be a better man than he was. this gave him the strength of character to reject odium and accept but not be conquered by 'the thrill'. everything else here was just fancy set dressing. the contrast with kaladin losing because he can't come to terms with his issues was really well done.
the whole magic...thing...whatever it was, was very hero of ages and i don't get it but i don't really care about magic system mechanics unless they influence character and im sure sanderson, being captain consistency in systems, will explain wtf that was. still, dalinar's temporary ascension to becoming a new god to replace the dead god was the logical culmination of his arc. i know he's a person again but i think his ending will be becoming unity full time. i do agree szeth becoming one of the bros should have been on screen.
the very end with big papa daddy dalinar learning to read and write so he could write a new way of kings aka kinda their version of machiavelli, and he called it oathbringer...that scene is perfect.