I think that moment for me too was elevated because of the format we read the book into.

Because we were reading so slowly, that slow build up to that climax actually made that climax hit even harder than maybe it does for someone who's speed reading.

Yeah.

But then I'm contrasting that between wind and truth, which we just got done talking about and we talked quite a bit in our wrap -up about how reading it slowly we think took away from.

the experience of reading wind and truth and i'm gonna have to go think about that now like why why was the climax of wind and truth kind of brought down by the slow read whereas the the end of way of kings maybe was elevated by it i'm gonna think about that Welcome back to following Noah Donovan's Stormlight Podcast.

This week is episode 276.

Gentlemen, welcome to our final Stormlight episode for the foreseeable future.

Paul, how are you?

Complete.

We're here at the end.

What we set out to do ultimately, which was to read the Stormlight Archive.

I'm sure Trevor had more goals for that, but that's what I was setting up for.

uh the five five what five and a half years ago something ridiculous now um i'm excited we're gonna we're gonna wrap it all up the whole series talk about the highlights and i don't know maybe the low lights yeah i'm along for the ride as always elliot how are you well i was doing great until you just said last stormlight archive ever And now I'm like making me sad.

Eventually, we'll get back to this.

It's a little ways out.

I said until the foreseeable future, which is true.

I know.

Make sure to tune in next week when we start the Way of Kings right over again.

People have been waiting for us to make that joke to start the Way of Kings after we're done with Emberdark.

And I didn't even want to entertain the idea for people.

I say that.

Horn Eater does come out next year in theory.

So we might actually visit it sooner than we're thinking.

But I don't know if we have much more intro before getting right into this episode.

What are you having us talk about in this final episode, Trevor?

Okay, so we are going to...

I feel like I usually say briefly here, but it's never brief.

So we are going to wrap up.

The Stormlight Archive, like Paul said, some of our highlights, some things, we have a something you change in Stormlight question later, which I'm excited to get to, but we're going to stick to our highlights of the Stormlight Archive.

And all the way through from book one to book five, let's start it with your top three favorite characters in order.

Who wants to go first?

I can kick us off, I guess.

I think after reading, oh man, we should have tied this up before we went live on this episode.

However many pages it's been now, five books, 6 ,000 pages of the Stormlight Archive.

It's a lot of time spent on Roshar.

I think it is without a doubt the character that is top of my list, the one I think I've learned the most from, the one that I...

relate to a ton the one that i really feel like i struggled with enjoyed victories with hit the low points with it was my man dalinar without a question without a question he he did not make my favorite character of book five which was a little bit of a shock to myself but that's because i think other characters were kind of brought to the brought to the fore in in win and truth quite a bit more and dalinar had maybe some of his bigger moments earlier but it's got to be dalinar his journey is awesome i'm i'm going to be making dalinar references for probably the rest of my life of things that dalinar did and went through super cool love the journey other two for like my top three I think Kaladin has always been a top tier character for me.

Maybe not the one that jumps out at me the most.

Maybe not the one that I talk about the most, but he's just always there, always trying so hard to do the right thing, always fighting this kind of mental battle that he's dealing with, but lifting everyone up around him at the same time.

Love me some Kaladin.

And then my third pick, I think, is sneaking in here as a little bit of a surprise.

This last book has...

fully sold me on Zeth.

And that would have shocked Elliot having finished the end of Words of Radiance or something like that.

I never considered Zeth a top 10, a top 15 character until the second half of Wind and Truth.

I really like where his story went.

And looking back now on the journey that he went on, I see so much more about...

who he became as a character i think if we were to go back and do a reread which i'm sure i'll do at some point even if we don't on the podcast i think zeth might be the character i'm going to be kind of on the lookout for the most in like words of radiance and any other books where he pops in enough to be kind of a character we can look at so down our calvin zeth that's my answer i would be curious to go revisit the The Oathbringer Zeth chapters, for example, where he spent some time with Nail getting manipulated by him and his Skybreaker stuff that he starts doing to know where he ends up with it.

Go back and revisit that.

That would be interesting.

It's dawning on me now that we should have kept these secret and predicted each other's because.

I feel like these are fairly easily predictable, but I will go next.

My top three in order are Kaladin.

dalinar and sigil and sunlit man spoilers i'm including sunlit man in this in this group of stormlight archive wrap up sunlit man it has a special place in my heart which brings sigil into my top three but to surprise no one kaladin is my favorite from where we find him in the way of kings all the way till Yeah, I'll include Wind and Truth.

I still don't think he does that much of Wind and Truth, even though I've been torn apart for that opinion since I made it.

And yeah, so from beginning to end, Kaladin has always been so solid, so fun to read and enjoyable to watch his journey from start to finish.

Definitely comes the furthest out of any of our characters.

Maybe with the exception of Zeth.

But Dalinar follows up.

Dalinar has the greatest lines in the whole series, bar none.

And also has the worst lows in the series, bar none.

There is no competing with Dalinar and how he carries every scene that he's in.

Even people who like him are intimidated by him, and that's really funny.

I really appreciate it.

what Sanderson did with Dalinar.

And then Sigil for obvious Sunlit Man reasons.

If you haven't read Sunlit Man, I'm not going to make you skip forward because, but go read Sunlit Man.

And he's always been a special character for me, but because of how much attention he got in Sunlit Man and Wind and Truth, he made my top three.

Yeah, this top three.

On the document that we have, it says top three or four.

So I have four, but I actually have a tie for third place.

So this probably won't come to anyone's surprise.

My favorite character throughout the Stormlight Archive is Zeth.

I'm grateful we got the continuation of his character arc.

He starts as this kind of enigmatic.

that we don't know much about.

We just get little glimpses, which was incredibly intriguing to me.

And then we just get it laid out further and further.

We learn more about him, like what's happened to him, how he's largely been a victim.

We see the flashbacks.

We see the continuation of his character in Winded Truth, which make a huge difference.

Next, I have Adolin.

Adolin, I think, is...

the most consistent character maybe throughout all the books.

He himself doesn't have...

He does have character development in these moments of changing and contemplating, thinking about his relationship, I think, with his family and Dalinar.

But largely, he's pretty consistent.

And frankly, he pretty consistently does the right thing in these stories.

He's very supportive.

Companion for Shallan.

And yeah, I think he's pretty stellar.

He does a lot with a little.

And so I think he's been really cool.

And then my tie for third, they're both so great, I really could not pick one over the other.

And that is Kaladin and Dalinar.

For all the reasons y 'all mentioned, they both go through so much.

They both grow so much.

I feel guilty having them at third place.

But it's my list.

So they're tied for third.

Excellent.

Excellent characters.

Yeah.

Next, I think we're talking about our honorable mention characters.

Before you jump into it, I want to preface this category.

So the next category that we have on the outline is titled honorable mention characters.

character singular and i initially put unsung hero character because the way i'm appreciate i'm approaching this is not necessarily like your fourth or fifth favorite character like you'd never put them in a rank of your favorite characters but they still have that special place in your heart where whatever page they show up on you're appreciating the their presence not necessarily a favorite character but an unsung hero honorable mention go ahead paul okay i did not answer this question with that regard however i i think the answer that i wrote down which i do have an answer to to cover that but the way i was thinking of this or what my character let me go ahead and say it i chose shallan and shallan for me we've had a sporadic history From the get -go, I think I was a bit of a Shallan hater.

But as time has gone on, I have only gained more respect in the last several books for Shallan.

So, definitely most improved.

I really like Shallan right now, to the point I even considered her among my favorite characters.

And if you asked me probably a book or a book and a half ago, that wouldn't have been a conversation.

So Shallan is my honorable mention.

We've come a long way, a lot of ups and downs on how I feel about Shallan as a character and whether or not I find her favorable among the whole cast, but definitely has gone up a lot.

If I were picking a bit of an unsung hero, I think my answer, you might disagree that this is unsung.

But I think I would pick Sigzal as mine, of like the character who's not in the primary cast of characters.

But every time he's on the screen, I really appreciate it.

I really like seeing Sigzal.

So I think that would be my other pick.

Elliot, go ahead.

The character I wrote down, the one that first came to mind as isn't going to make my top five per se, but is someone who holds a...

a special place in my Stormlight experiences is definitely Navani.

I related a lot with her engineer vibe and her goals of just helping the team, supporting others, figuring things out.

I like that quite a bit.

I think Rhythm of War overall is a underrated Stormlight Archive book.

Of all the books out there, that's the one I think I, I'm going to spend time championing the most because I think that book was awesome.

And Navani's part in that was a big part of that.

So I guess Navani.

With kind of the other spin on your way you phrased this question, another name comes to mind.

And that's actually Renarin.

It's not necessarily that he's a minor character.

I think he's a fairly major character.

But in so many of the scenes where he pops in, I kind of like instantly.

focused in on the, Ooh, what's going to happen here.

He was, he was such an intriguing character from day one, from moments where he's just popping in and you don't even really know who he is to the moment where he's charging into the arena to try and save his brother.

Who's been tricked into a duel that he's going to die to where he's fighting thunderclass.

You know, he had so many cool moments that I was just like, man, I like that dude.

And so I think, I think there's not Bernard deserves a shout out for me.

Not to mention Renarin being essentially the key to not being able to tell what's happening with people.

From that moment, I'm like, okay, I've got to know every next step that Renarin takes.

And my honorable mention is Xyle.

I think Xyle takes advantage of every page he's on.

I have a soft spot for the old, grizzled, warrior, grumpy, retired general guy type character.

And Zile definitely fills that successfully for me in the Stormlight Archive.

Don't have that much more to say on that hero.

Besides, he is quite enjoyable on every page he shows up on.

In that vein of grizzled old war dudes who take you under their wing.

I'm a little surprised that Teff didn't show up anywhere on your list there.

Teff's on the outline.

Well, we'll get there.

But you didn't put him at the top.

It might just be recency bias because I haven't seen Teff in a while.

Rest in peace.

All right.

Moving right along.

All -time favorite Stormlight scene.

On the outline, I put one or two.

Each of us put two, so nobody can actually pick one.

Elliot, go first.

I had to stick with my favorite character, with Dalinar, because those are the moments that I think stick with me the most.

If I had to pick one, I think it would be the end of Way of Kings.

I still remember how impactful that scene was when Dalinar gives up his Shardblade.

which we were so in awe of Shardblades at that point in the story.

Those things were so cool, the pinnacle of awesome.

And Dalinar gives it up to buy the priceless lives of Kaladin and his bridge crew.

And in the politics of all the...

War camps and the high princes and down are just trying to make a statement of we've got to follow these codes.

We've got to do the right thing for him to then step up and say, look, let me live it.

Let me live what I've been saying.

We need to make tough decisions to do the right thing.

Boom.

Here it is.

That was just like, oh man, so cool.

I think that's my top scene.

Fast forward two books, get to Oathbringer though.

And the whole Sander Lange of Oathbringer.

is a ride and i think i can't talk about favorite scenes without including that one because that one's pretty cool too i want to dwell on the end of the way kings that you're talking about here i think that scene defines stormlight for you as a reader whether stormlight really has a is a home run for you or not because i know people who start the way of Kings.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, it's good.

It's good.

And then they'll finish the way of Kings.

And then I always sit there and wait.

Is the reaction like, wow, that was the best thing I've ever read.

Or is it like, yeah, it was good because I cannot wrap my head around the people who are just like, yeah, I finished way of Kings.

I'm into words of radiance.

I'm like, what do you mean?

Like, what do you mean?

Like you just read the scene.

and you didn't like explode over it that that is so pivotal for me and for i i know so many other readers and if that if that scene doesn't completely knock it out of the park for you i think that says a lot for you and your experience of stormlight i'm i'm gonna buddy trail on that for a second because i just realized something i think that moment for me too was elevated because of the format we read the book into because we were reading so slowly that slow build up to that climax actually made that climax hit even harder than maybe it does for someone who's speed reading yeah but then i'm contrasting that between wind and truth which we just got done talking about and we got we talked quite a bit in our wrap -up about how reading it slowly we think took away from the experience reading wind and truth and i'm gonna have to go think about that now like why why was the climax of wind and truth kind of brought down by the slow read whereas the the end of way of kings maybe was elevated by it i'm gonna think about that sorry bunny trail on your thought i think i have a good way to segue that elliot you're the moment you're referring to that you're talking about the end of the way of kings is like the moment yeah it's it's like the big moment And I think I think back more fondly of that scene now than I even felt reading it.

I was not in the camp of like, oh, that's okay.

Like I loved it at the time.

But thinking back now, especially after following Dalinar's character this far, I think I think back even more that that was such a wonderful scene in retrospect.

I think.

The time that we spent on it did help.

I guess there's more to know and more to dwell on.

And as you see these characters and the social system in place, it just means more and more, I think, which is really cool.

Hold on.

One more thing on that scene.

Okay.

Not only is Dalinar's actions what sends that scene home for me.

It's what it means to Kaladin.

And that scene is written from the point of view of Kaladin.

And the entire book for 800 pages up until that point, Kaladin has been, I'm the downtrodden, dark eyes, the light eyes abuse us, blah, blah, blah.

There is no honorable light eyes and another oath dies.

And then what Dalinar does.

completely flips it on its head for Kaladin.

And I think that is just the cherry on top of what it means personally to Kaladin and how Dalinar has earned a loyalty for life from Kaladin from that one scene.

All right, go ahead, Paul.

Okay, so I tried to pick my events.

to not include the events that my co -hosts have picked, there are really 10, probably 10 or more scenes I could put in this bucket of my favorite moments from the Stormlight Archive.

It was really, really hard to pick.

I changed my answer a bunch.

Obviously, the big moments with Dalinar are incredible.

The moment we talked about with the Way of Kings, 10 out of 10, easily.

But if I had to pick...

My favorite scene.

I'm sure y 'all were expecting this.

All the people who are listening, it has to be back in the way of Kings.

Dalinar and Navani kissing.

It just really set my heart just fluttering.

And it really spoke to me.

And I just, I still think about that.

We're five books in now.

And I just think back to that romantic scene where Dalinar and Navani kiss.

And I just, every time.

Clip it.

Save it.

Clip it.

Save it.

Send it.

We need to play the Way of Kings clip right now of you absolutely trashing that scene.

The character development wasn't the characters in the book.

It was Paul and his softness for romantic scenes.

Or their kiss.

Yeah, absolutely.

No, no, no.

But in reality, my actual favorite scenes.

One, my first pick.

is actually the Kaladin and Zeth duels in Words of Radiance.

Of course, you have the big above the clouds one.

That's the pinnacle.

And it's like the coolest spectacle fight I think we get.

And it's so well done.

There's obviously so much beautiful art that goes with that scene that attributes to that as well.

But that, and coupled with the moment Zeth has in that too.

first earlier in the book when they fight and he realizes he's not truthless to then later his development getting nightblood and and meeting nail all the things really cool but the spectacle of those scenes were so incredible it's it's just got to be a top pick my other choice is what i think was the best twist in the story to when taravangian becomes odium I still think so much.

Excuse me.

I still think so much.

What if this had been different?

Dalinar and Terra of Engine at this time are talking about how they're going to embrace at the Contest of Champions and how Dalinar is going to prove Terra of Engine wrong.

And then this crazy twist comes.

He uses Nightblood and stabs Raze and picks up the Shard of Odium.

Absolutely, like, never could have guessed it happening.

And then you're just left wondering what could have been and trying to figure out what is going to happen now.

And I think it was the coolest twist in the storyline.

Still thinking back to it, it leaves me jawed.

And leaves me jaw dropped.

Leaves your jaw on the floor.

I didn't phrase that right at all.

I didn't start my sentence to end it well, but it still is a jaw dropping moment for me.

And our experience of that was a little different, right?

Let's, let's spoil a little bit of Mistborn here for, for a second.

So if somehow you're here in avoiding Mistborn spoilers, maybe jump ahead.

Trevor, help me remember this right.

We read that.

Before we read Mistborn Era 1.

Correct.

Right?

So that experience for us might have come in a different order than a lot of readers who would have known a bit more about what's possible when it comes to ascending to a shard or what that looks like.

And so for us, for that to be the first moment that we see someone take on a shard, I think made that so impactful.

I talked about this scene a decent amount in my Stormlight Scenes tier list right after Rhythm of War.

Right after we released Rhythm of War in that hiatus we took.

That scene did wonders for the series as like a meta release time aspect.

So that the time between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War.

Stormlight became extremely popular.

Like way more people started reading Stormlight between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War.

And so during that time, everybody was like, okay, at the end of Oathbringer, we've pushed back Raze successfully.

The Shard of Odium is not as scary after the end of Oathbringer because we have this epic, which I'll talk about here in a second, pushback against Odium.

And it feels like we have...

Defeated him, at least temporarily.

What Rhythm of War does is completely changes the rules going into Wind and Truth.

None of your pre -existing rules about Odium and Raze apply at all when Terra Vangin grabs it.

And I think that is so cool to completely flip all of the stakes right before the fifth book.

That if you were to read this start to finish, you would appreciate it even more of Terra Vangian grabbing it.

Oh, everything is about to change.

And it does.

And I think that's part of the brilliance of that scene is not only Terra Vangian ascending to Odium, but Rey's losing it.

And what that means for our heroes is part of the master of that scene.

Okay, I will finish this up.

So my top two.

I didn't pick the obvious one, which is the end of The Way of Kings.

I left that for somebody else, and both of you tried to grab it.

And I wanted to highlight the end of Oathbringer, specifically Dalinar's scenes.

If you ever go to read the end of Oathbringer and just read Dalinar POV and skip everybody else who's doing boring stuff, and Dalinar sits there in the breach.

And accepts his pain.

You can't have it.

It's mine.

I accept it.

This is who I am.

Is some of the best writing.

Ever done in fantasy.

It is that simple.

To acknowledge.

Who Dalinar is.

Throughout the entire book.

He is not who I thought he was.

To Adolin.

Adolin wrestles with it later.

But to the reader.

And to Kaladin.

We've put Dalinar on this huge pedestal ever since The Way of Kings.

Dalinar is who he says he is.

He is the guy.

He does follow through.

And then to learn what a terrible person he is, and he purposely gives up his memories so that he can be a better person.

And then when he receives them back, and then he still chooses correctly at the end when he has his memories back.

It's so good.

To have that as Dalinar's third ideal, second ideal, I don't even remember.

You cannot take my pain.

It grows on me on every single reread.

When I first read it, I was blown away by it, but I didn't understand the full gravity of it until several rereads later.

And I'm sure for some people who aren't as...

fully invested in dalinar as maybe you and i are that maybe that doesn't quite hit as impactfully in oathbringer but like for me who dalar is my favorite character dalinar is the one i'm the most interested in to spend the entirety of that book going through his flashbacks going oh no what have i done picking this guy as my hero who who is this guy fearing how this is going to turn out how in the world is this going to be okay And then, like you said, for him to reach that moment where he makes the decisions he does, so good.

And then my second favorite is The Wander Sale, spoken by Hoyd.

Even after the revelation that it might be a completely made -up story by Ishar to...

I don't know what Ishar's goal there is, but...

The Wandersail has a special place in my heart because it's so whimsical and fairytale -y.

Everything high fantasy should be.

Hoid lures Kaladin out to his campfire and does some magic things with his flute.

It's so special and cool.

I really appreciate The Wandersail.

Just to get it on the record.

Does this mean you rate the Wandersail over the Dog and the Dragon?

Yeah, but I've read the Wandersail way more than I've read the Dog and the Dragon.

I've only read the Dog and the Dragon like twice, maybe thrice.

And the Wandersail I've read probably like 12 times.

Interesting.

Okay.

uh yes the to answer your question yes but that might just be repetition bias all right honorable mention scene again i treated this as not necessarily in my top five favorite scenes but one that holds a special place in my heart i'll go first teft is on this outline teft's third ideal At the end of Oathbringer, while the whole chaos of the end of Oathbringer is going on, it is super easy to miss Teft's third ideal.

And that's a little sad.

But again, if you just read Teft's story at the end of Oathbringer, if you skip through everybody else and just read Teft, he is completely broken after the addiction that he's gone through in Oathbringer that's been viewed.

by the rest of bridge four and they've tried their best to pull him out of it and fenderana comes to him and says no you can start over you can try again it is okay and then your theory is under attack theft single hand like all of the radiants are either gone or there's a super like skeleton crew at your theory And Teff decides, no, I can be this man.

I can try again, pick myself up.

I will protect even those I hate, even if the one I hate most is myself.

And he grabs his third ideal, runs down to the Oathgate, and in my head, single -handedly defends Irithiru.

It's probably not, but single -handedly defends Irithiru against...

the oath or the uh oath gate that is turned on them tefster ideal has a special place in my heart i will go next because mine has been mentioned briefly already my pick for honorable mention is the dog and the dragon i think this is my favorite story time we get throughout the stormlight archive and it really it was just really cute and thorough The imagery of this dog who wants to be a dragon and then ultimately realizes that the joy in his life, the happiness, the warmth he feels is not going to come from becoming a dragon.

He wasn't made to be a dragon, but by being a dog and curling up with his family and by a nice warm fire and these things.

And it was just beautiful.

I don't have to even explain it.

I know everyone listening loved it as well.

So that's my honorable mention.

So I guess that leaves me for my honorable mention scene.

And I'm cheating a little bit on this answer.

Sorry, Trevor.

I'm not picking one scene necessarily more a plot thread, a series of scenes, the kind of total aggregate value of all these scenes.

And these scenes are all of the kind of.

fencing we see between Navani and Raboniel in Rhythm of War.

I think this is one of the big reasons I think that book is a little underrated and probably not going to make my top five list of big Stormlight moments, but that kind of undercurrent of Navani and Raboniel trying to outsmart each other while at the same time trying to solve some of the big scientific questions of how does investiture work?

How can we use this to further our agendas to achieve our goals while at the same time not giving too much information to the enemy?

And then there's kind of the different personal elements coming in from both of those stories with Navani and her family and her, you know, Dalinar and everything, Raboniel and her daughter.

So much wrapped up in one really intriguing plot line that I really enjoyed.

Sounds good.

All right.

On to this question.

If you were to make a change in Stormlight, what would it be?

I am going to go first.

What I wrote was, if I were to make a change, I would like to swap Dalinar and Zeth's POV book.

Maybe.

And I'm not sure exactly the format of how you do that because you then can't have Dalinar's scene at the end of Oathbringer.

I wish Zeth had been resolved sooner and that Dalinar had hit his peak when he dies.

And so there's a lot of formatting that has to go on there, but...

The fact that Dalinar has his big moment on the end of Oathbringer and then kind of coasts until he sacrifices himself at the end of Wind and Truth, that's a little sad to me.

And I wish there's some formatting things that could have happened to where that wasn't the case.

And I wish Wind and Truth had left me in tears as opposed to Oathbringer.

Does that make sense?

I don't know how you do that specifically, but yeah.

I guess I can go next with mime.

For changes I would make, this depends on the book.

Like for a series as a whole, I don't know that I would suggest any sweeping changes across the whole, but for books one through four, I'm going to ring an old bell.

I would like more descriptions, Brandon.

Boo.

Boo.

You listen to me.

You've actually started to give us more.

Book five, I think, had more of this than the previous four.

So go back to Way of Kings and rewrite that and tell me what the scenery looks like.

Tell me what the characters are smelling and eating.

more about the landscape around me, immerse me a little bit and a little bit more.

I would love to see that now.

Yeah, what needs to get sacrificed to allow for that?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know how to actually do that.

There's problems probably that arise from that.

But book five is very different.

Wind and Truth felt like a different style of book to me.

for a variety of reasons and i don't think that would be what i would change about book five i think what i would change about book five is it needed to have more lore in book five we by the time we got done with book four by the time we're done with rhythm of war we kind of learned almost everything about the world and so going into book five we had a giant book five to get through lots of action lots of scenes but there wasn't really any anything left aside from i guess the spiritual realm for us to learn about the kind of mechanics of the world and the the lore bits i think is actually what kept me going through the slow parts i enjoyed the slow parts of books one through four because those are the parts where i was getting to learn it felt like i was sitting in class for all the right reasons and enjoying kind of soaking in more info.

In book five, when it got slower, I didn't feel like I was learning much.

I was kind of waiting to get to the next sequence.

So book five needed more lore.

Book one through four need more descriptions.

I think Elliot and I took this different directions because I already know I'm going to get a lot of dislike, disappointment, and perhaps outrage.

from my initial statement, but we're making a critique to the Stormlight Archive overall.

I think I would make them shorter.

I would make them shorter.

I think the reason for this, I will begin my explanations now.

I believe that there are too many threads, too many points that have been opened, that it is now...

beginning to distract from the storyline at hand.

And I'm okay with that being cut.

I'm not talking about major cuts.

Make them half their length.

I don't know.

I'm talking maybe 5 % of the book.

5 % to 8%.

Where some of these things, some scenes I think could be cut.

I don't know.

You could get rid of 10.

I think her and the...

Words of Radiance was just obnoxious.

There's some things I think weren't that needed.

And I think some things could be cut.

I think if we had more closure, maybe I'd feel differently.

But I feel like there's too many threads out now that cannot be tied together, ultimately.

So that makes me think it should have been toned back a bit.

Now, y 'all can hate me for that, saying they should be shorter.

I think they're wonderful.

The size, I'm talking a 5 % cut for the shareholders or something.

I don't know.

And unmute.

Okay, here we go.

Yeah.

Big breath.

I am not going to tear you apart for this, Paul, actually.

For the reasons you're talking about, I actually kind of agree with you.

Kind of.

I think personally books one through three are fine for the length.

I wouldn't want to make them longer.

So that's where I get conflicted when I say, Brandon, I want more descriptions.

I want more descriptions, but I don't want a longer book.

So something would have to be sacrificed there.

When we start to get to books four and five, I agree with you.

I think at that point, the scope of the book has grown so much that it is a lot to keep track of.

It is a lot to keep a handle of.

It is hard to have a plot line in book five that hits as hard as the plot lines in one, two, and three because it's up against so many other things.

I feel like in Way of Kings and Oathbringer, we were able to focus in a little harder, maybe a lot harder on a specific character in their journey.

And so by the time we get to book five, I'm having a hard time.

caring quite as much about Downer's big moment because I spent the whole book kind of emotionally figuring out where I'm at with Zeth.

And so do they need to be shorter?

I don't know about that.

I like how giant they are, but like the reasons you're talking about, I actually think I agree with.

I think I, as a blanket statement, I disagree with you, Paul, but I think it really does matter what you're cutting.

The example that you used, I don't think is actually a good example because it's Shallan's book.

I don't think you can cut tin because shallan absorbs tin and then expels Vale from tin.

And that's her entire story in Words of Radiance is Vale sneaking around with the Ghostbloods.

So what I think might be better to cut is, I don't know.

insert random like the lift interlude in words of radiance like stuff that really does not push words of radiance towards its plot the reason why the lift interlude is in words of radiance is because lift will be an important character in two books right not in words of radiance so if you were to cut things like you're saying i think you need to cut things that aren't your example.

Because 10 directly contributes to the Shallan story.

I agree with you, Trevor.

10, I didn't like, so it just snuck out there.

That was personal bias motivated.

That was not logical.

What Elliot said, I do agree with.

I think there are more things I would cut from the later parts of this series than from the beginning.

There's a lot less I would pick out of.

Words of Radiance than there is that I would pick out of Rhythm of War and Wind and Truth, I think.

So maybe 5 % overall, but not from every book, perhaps.

I think that's a good way to put it.

But I think the main thing is not, oh, I didn't like that character, let's cut them.

It's towards the end, we've opened our net too wide.

I don't think we can fulfill that later on.

So I would chop back some of those open -ended mysteries and plots and people that we get.

Sure.

To kind of cap this off, I would lean the direction of cutting characters to cut pages instead of cutting pages from the story that we have.

So, like, spending time...

with Kaladin and Tien sitting on a rooftop in Hearthstone in a rainstorm.

That type of scene is extremely valuable to me.

I wouldn't cut that type of scene from The Way of Kings, for example.

But I would start cutting characters in the later three books, like you guys are saying.

Like Teft?

Like Exendweth.

Or combine...

venly and her sister who i don't never remember her name into the into the yeah esh and i into the same character like that that type of thing of our for lack of a better term b tier and c tier cast not that they're like worst characters but fewer page time like combine some of those characters into the same character for less less threads fewer threads that's what i would do Yeah.

I feel like characters like the mink or some others that are kind of just not even tertiary, but course sherry, like that's one example, but it doesn't have to be him.

There's a lot of characters in the last two books that get brought up for one simple little thing.

And then they're on their way.

Sure.

You can, you can do that anyways.

I don't have to go into more detail.

I think that that's what I, you're asking for a change.

That's what I'd say.

Yeah, there we go.

Alrighty.

Sweeping question to end this episode.

Any final thoughts on the entirety of the Stormlight Archive?

Oof.

What a question.

Yep.

I think to try and wrap up my thoughts, to try and summarize my reaction to all of Stormlight Archive is...

One, really difficult, but two, maybe kind of obvious.

I think what I would say is that this series, these five books specifically in Brandon's Cosmere, hit a lot of sweet spots for me.

I'm a fairly picky fantasy reader.

There are a lot of fantasy books.

And when I say a lot, probably getting close up to 20 now at this point.

I have picked up and not finished, like book one of whatever series it was.

This is the reason why you were loathe to pick this up.

Yes, I was very loathe to pick it.

You were pushing me to read this for several years before we started this podcast, and I just never did.

I'll even admit, you know, I picked up the, or I just looked at the cover, the cover art, and I went, ah, that's just so boilerplate fantasy.

It's a cool picture, but it just screams boilerplate fantasy.

I was very low to pick this up.

I was like, oh, that is a big book.

I'm going to get a third of the way through that and put that down.

What it takes to get me into a book, to keep me reading it, to get me excited, to make it feel like it's worth my time, that's going to have a positive impact on me as a person, are so many of the things that we encountered in this series.

They're things like gripping characters.

I've got to have characters that make me interested in, man, I got to know what happens to this person.

I got to have people that I can root for, people that I want to journey with, people that I feel like I can be in a fellowship with them.

If there aren't characters like that, I'm going to put it down pretty quick.

We got so many of those characters in Stormlight Archive.

The other big thing, the other sweet spot for me, I think, is I'll call it, I don't know what the actual name for this might be, but Virtue Fantasy.

Fantasy books that...

celebrate that really bring to the the four virtue and doing the right things and being a hero that's that's something that is not in every fantasy book that you that you pick up sometimes you pick up a fantasy book and you're like man there are no heroes in this book And whenever I get to that point in a book, I usually put it down because I'm just like, I don't know why I want to keep reading this.

And I never once had that thought in Stormlight Archive.

I was always given examples of heroes.

And not that everyone in this book is perfect, far from.

And that's what makes it, I think, a super exciting read.

But there was always moments that got me thinking, man, I wish I was more like that.

So many of those.

And then add on top of that, you get this super interesting.

science -y magic system.

Brandon threw just enough science and engineering in there to hook me hard on the magic systems of figuring out how the heck all of this works.

I've busted out my colored pencils and drawn hand -drawn diagrams of this stuff.

And not many books do that for me.

And maybe just the biggest one would just be the big payoffs.

Brandon is so good at this, right?

He is the king of...

build up and pay off of leading you through a meaningful adventure that hits elements along the way that all tie into the final point that you hit to and you get there and you realize it.

You have that realization when you're like, oh my goodness, that brings together everything.

That is so cool.

And I don't know that I've ever read an author who does quite that.

So yeah, a lot of sweet spots, a lot of good takeaways.

This was the...

fantasy series for me for sure well i'm glad you kept after me trevor i'm glad you did not let me push you off for too long and made me pick up the way of kings eventually aha yeah ellie i think you said that very very well there's not much that i can add one of the things i want to add is many authors have this level of scope or these goals with these characters and the plot and the payoff but brandon is truly a gifted writer that he does such a great job um making it enjoyable along the way um he does such a good job with that things that i love about this i love the medieval setting um obviously the characters are fantastic this is the series the brandon sanderson series That I'm always interested in.

Always engaged in.

If anyone that I come across is like.

I've read Brandon Sanderson.

I'm really hoping that they have read.

The Stormlight Archive specifically.

Because that is.

It's just the flavor of it.

The style.

The moments you get.

They just hit so hard.

Like you're talking about.

The payoff is so good.

There's not much I can say that y 'all haven't already.

But yeah, he just does such a fantastic job.

Yeah, it's been a treat.

I mentioned earlier I was ragging on it for maybe getting too big in scope later in the series.

But one of the main things that drew me in as we started the book was a larger than expected scope, specifically interludes.

when we are reading and we're learning about Kaladin and Shallan, and we're barely introduced to Dalinar, and then we get dropped out of left field to Ishik in some lake, and my brain is racing.

It's not a mystery, per se, but it's, okay, this is much bigger scope than I'm expecting.

How are these pieces going to connect?

My brain gets to racing, gets to working.

And that hooked me pretty quick.

To highlight something that Elliot already mentioned, what really makes the difference for me is virtue.

The virtue of the heroes.

If it is worth celebrating, if it is worth reading, then it's got me.

Now, to add on top of that, the wonderful world, the wonderful writing, the wonderful setting, like the...

the behavior of these virtuous heroes, all of that is just cherries on top of the wonderful, solid foundation of this hero is worth rooting for.

It makes the complete difference to me that Kaladin running the bridge runs to defend his bridge crew, trying his best, any rule that he can get away with to try to increase their odds even a little bit.

Incredible.

And all I have to say at the end is thank you, Brandon.

Thank you, Brandon Sanderson, for writing this.

Thank you to his team, his writing group, who believed in this story for it to get out to the public.

And thank you for those early readers who read Brandon Sanderson to make him popular.

All of those together pushed Brandon Sanderson into this massive spotlight that he has now.

And it is, I think it's all because of this incredible solid foundation that Brandon Sanderson has of virtue writing.

I don't know if there is a hero out there who I, in Sanderson's books that I don't root for from page 20.

There's sometimes where I'll pick up a book.

I'm like, what's going on?

And then he'll explain to me who the hero is.

And I'm like, all right, cool.

But thank you, Brandon.

Any closing thoughts?

I couldn't say it better.

A big, big thank you to all of those people you shouted out.

Brandon, we enjoyed your journey through not just this, but the Cosmere overall.

And it's kept us talking for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours.

We should have gone back and looked at how many hours.

We should have tallied all that up.

We should have.

We'll probably do that.

uh here pretty soon again i did an episode a while back where i tallied up some of our air time and word counts and stuff like that we'll do that again and we'll be able to shout that out but man 276 episodes worth of content here so much so much to talk about and brandon we have we have you to thank for that so thank you all right next week the format of this podcast changes we are entering The Encore of the Cosmere, The Isles of Emberdark.

Elliot has read it.

Paul and I have not.

And we will be starting it next week, starting it prologue through chapter three.

We will read it, whatever Elliot's chapter splits are, I have no idea.

So if you're curious, you can ask him.

But we will be reading Isles of Emberdark next.

Until then, thanks for joining me, Paul and Elliot.

See you next time.

Bye -bye for now.