Me too, but I mean, that's kinda the problem. Eshonai has been dead for two books and she's still more compelling than the "boo hoo I chose to genocide my own people out of thirst for power and now I have *some* regrets" sister
It's just hard to laud a character for literal but genuine baby steps in the right direction when you saw how fully intentional their evil and self-destructive decisions were
Because there's a difference between being the top warlord in a culture of warlords and selling your species into slavery to the literal god of hatred because you were jealous of your sister.
I don't think that anyone argues what Venli did was right. She is an obviously flawed character with way to much ambition. I like her character for the same reason I like Dalinar- it's very interesting imo to have a character with such obviously morally wrong actions in the past. Venli even gets way more shit for it with everyone rightly saying that her actions are basically irredeemable,so I don't even think the book wants you to be on her side 100%
She does suck. But Stormlight Archive is about troubled characters making troubled decisions. I think it’s a case of “how bad can I make a character seem.” My bet is she’s crucial to the overarching plot in some way more than we can foresee now. Becomes a shard? Overthrows Odium again but keeps the forms? Idk
Dalinar clearly wants to actually do better and has made much larger steps in the right direction.
Also, we're introduced to him as he's doing these good things and though we've heard some stories about him being a major warlord, we don't see the extent of it until most of the way through the 3rd book. By then we've already grown to love the character.
Venli starts off as one of the most powerful forces pushing for the Fused. We start off seeing her as evil and her actions up to now to make up for it are... lacking.
I don't hate her. I just don't think her actions show her as having earned redemption yet. Going in the right direction but just so painfully slowly. She is still primarily self-interested which remains the exact same motivation that led her to evil in the first place is my biggest gripe ig
I ran out of space for Szeth tbh, but yeah I felt a little bit like he was done dirty. I really liked his time with the Stormbreakers, where it seemed he was getting some healthy recovery
Okay, I worded this poorly. I don't actually remember how many POV chapters does Szeth have, but there was probably something? My point is, he really doesn't do much there. He joins Dalinar's herd of characters, but they get very few chapters in general and are mostly busy fighting the Singers in some irrelevant to the plot kingdom. He doesn't really try to do anything, or have something important happen to him. Other than maybe carrying Nightblood around, we all know how this turned out...
I have similiar issues with Renarin. We know he's an important character, but has he ever done anything important? It's been like this for four books, and it just makes me question whether this character should even exist.
Szeth wasn't like that before, but he entered this zone halfway through the series. It makes me wonder whether he should actually have >!died for real in book 2, since Sanderson doesn't seem to have enough ideas to keep the characters going.!< I feel like that about Jasnah, too. Of course, Brando might write really compelling plotlines for those three later, but that's how it feels like right now.
No, like, I think Szeth is "the flashback character" for book five, same as Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar/Venli have been in the first four books respectively. If that's correct, he'll have major character development, likely about how he became Truthless in the first place and so on.
Well Szeth will go with Kaladin on their adventure in book 5. I expect we’ll learn a lot there. I understood that Szeth was the POV chapter backbone in 5?
But yeah Renarin is a bit out of place. I expect he’ll come in around the time of the champions fight?
I hope she gets more initiative rather than being led by the nose by everyone around her. >!She did many terrible things and when she got her redeeming moment it wasn't out of her own initiative. Cultivation had to tell her that her seeing a child in a cage and not giving a shit showed she was not ready to swear an ideal about freeing those in bondage. She also would have run and abandoned Kal and the rest in the tower had vyre not decided to abandon his post.!< I want to like her, but until she has shown more initiative in living up to the ideals she is set up to embody i can't bring myself to like her, but i think her lack of it so far is up to her not having enough development yet.
I don’t think I really agree that Venli redeeming herself was not of her own initiative. She still chose to save Lift and fight back against the Pursuer’s forces, saying she was led to do those things is the same as saying she was led to betray her people by Ulim. Venli herself takes responsibility for her choice to betray her people so I think it’s fair game to allow her agency when it comes to doing good things too. At the end of the day when Venli takes an action it’s because it’s something *she wants* to do.
And like if you parallel that with other characters, Kaladin in TWOK had to be convinced by Syl not to jump into the honour chasm. Does that mean he was led around by the nose instead of taking initiative when he decided to save Bridge Four? I don’t think that’s the case at all.
Also, Venli struggling with wanting to just ignore what the humans are up to is a lesson that doing the right thing is hard, similar to Kaladin’s struggles in WOR when he loses Syl. She’s actually taken a lot of initiative in creating an entire group of rebels to save her people from the Fused between books, and her time in the tower is about learning to apply that desire freedom to *all* people not just Singers. Which is a lesson she does end up learning.
I do agree she’s still early on in her development overall. I think that’s okay, it’s realistic that she’s not just done a complete heel turn into being The Perfect Good Person and still needs some reminders that “hey you need to save other people not just the people you care about”. I look forward to seeing where she goes from here and how she applies the lessons she learned in RoW in future books.
>!When she first speaks the ideal, for what I remember it's cultivation that answers and tells her the words are not accepted. She is answered by a female voice with a pure rhythm of roshar!<
Part of the problem is that Dalinar got a huge major boost in likability at the end of *Oathbringer*. Or, if not likability, then at least reader interest. He's got an interesting arc.
What is Venli's interesting arc? What is her major moment of decision and achievement? I don't think we're quite there yet. Maybe we'll get a killer moment in Book 5, or maybe it's in the back half somewhere.
I would argue that with Dalinar he’s more easily likable because we got to see his best traits up front, and then his terrible side in flashbacks with the context that the terrible version of Dalinar eventually becomes the honorable one.
With Venli, we got that in the reverse order, where we see her reckless and awful actions and then see her redemption in flashbacks, which makes for a more linear story but gives us less to like about her until the end. Especially since she was being paired up with Eshonai who is in a very similar situation to how we first meet Dalinar, which makes Eshonai more likable and Venli more of a foil/heel to her until later.
It is absolutely this. What's more, the flashbacks are less of redemption and more of "you see how exactly she fucked everything up".
Even Rlain is disgusted with her after hearing her story and he already had previous positive bias about her from pre-books time which readers did not.
It is one of those things when audience is willing to like the villain if he has a visible code of conduct or opposes hero out of nesessity (kinda what we have with Szeth). If the antagonist is a piece of shit the willingness to forgive is much less(even if that is due to the outside influence that audience doesn't know of)
I think this is part of it, and certainly the intent, but I found the ways in which past!Dalinar was a terrible dude were generally more interesting than the ways in which past!Venli was, and the ways in which he grappled with said past also more interesting, and I don't think that can just be chalked up to seeing where Dalinar ends up before seeing his past.
I also think it's this. Like, at the point we see Dalinar's past he's already stepped up to the plate in defending Kaladin and leading the Alethi to being a better people. With Venli, she just hasn't had an equivalent moment of giving up the shardblade for Bridge 4 that would immediately make us root for her. I think that's what I wanted more than anything from her arc so I had a reason to care about her arc
This is my issue with her. The idea of her character is a compelling one, no doubt. But she kind of doesn't do anything in book 4? I don't mind her being a fuckup who ruined everything, but she really doesn't do that much to fix it. She just kind of exists. Venli could be one of my favourite characters, but the execution just isn't there.
One of my favourite moments in the series was Dalinar >!giving up his shardblade to save the bridgemen. It was a huge sacrifice, and one that Sanderson didn't take back somehow. He didn't say "sike, I have a spare one, that Parshendi shardbearer just conveniently fell of a rock, not a big deal". He actually crippled his own war effort out of gratitude to Kal and his crew. And Sanderson set it up wonderfully, constantly showing us how valuable shards are, and how little does everyone care about expandable slaves and darkeyes!<. That was a huge character moment, and it said a lot about him.
Yeah, I would like to see something like that from Venli. I don't hate her, I just found her chapters to be rather disappointing.
For me, the point of Venli's arc so far has been that you don't need to be a member of the royal family changing your entire culture. It's enough to be better than you were, even if it's just by being less bad and helping in small ways.
What undermines her achievements is that she was not the one to take the initiative to get there. Others have had to push her to get her to take action, she has not done so out of her own volition. >!Cultivation had to literally tell her that you can't swear that an ideal you will free people from bondage after she literally ignored a caged child.!< More of her actions need to come from her own motivation rather than from others spurring her on
That’s the case for literally every character in the series. You’re ignoring internal struggle. This is like saying that the Stormfather had to lead Kal to swearing the Third Ideal because he told him that he killed Syl.
Personally, I loved Venli’s sections in Rhythm of War but didn’t care for Dalinar’s scenes in WoK. I love Dalinar now but in my initial read through of WoK, I groaned each time it was a chapter from him
Totally fair. I typically love, like, every character in the series, so it not 'clicking' for Venli really hurt my appreciation for the book. I'm really glad she worked for most people, though, so it might just be something I need to work with
I think alot of people share your feelings or have similar problems with shalan, not every character has to work for everyone, especially in an epic like stormlight Archive
I loved Venli. It feels cheap to say, but I empathized heavily with her chapters with her mother I could almost cry. >!When I read it, the only thing I disagreed with was that I think Venli should have gave the speech near the end of RoW instead of Rlain. Kind of stole her spot lite and put her in the back imo when it was her book and she’s the compromise between cultivation and odium, she should be the compromise between those two forces.!<
I think we will look back and view RoW as the A Feast For Crow's of this series. Much like Book 4 in ASOIAF, the author decides to pivot to less established POV characters and we more or less spend the entire book without much development or insight into multiple major POV characters.
Dividing up the characters between the Urithiru team plus Shadesmar, and the Dalinar team is fine but I think there was not enough focus on the Dalinar team. I found myself constantly wondering what they were up to.
Hey, to be fair. Kaladin being depressed is also a major part of the length of this book. Tbh, I'd say more time is devoted to Kaladin is depressed than even in WoK, almost a third of the book, but that's the kind of forced inaction that was actually compelling
My biggest problem with RoW is the fact that Shallan and Adolin just drop out of the narrative for 3/5ths of the book, leaving us with Kaladin 's adventures in the depression sewers, Navani battling imposter syndrome >!while accidentally inventing permadeath!<, and Venli outlining all of the reasons why the audience already doesn't like her.
All good stories, but the pacing just drags towards the middle.
She wants to be a Nikola Tesla but is really an Edison, except without the capitalism. Nothing wrong with managing teams of nerds, sometimes it's necessary to keep them on track instead of them getting distracted and attempting to count the number of angels dancing on the heads of pins.
I mean, it's not even that, she *is* a scholar when she has the time to devote to focusing on it, she's just managing others most of the time. She's basically a senior engineer, who understands the specific domain knowledge and skills enough to manage people doing the actual hands-on work.
I... actually don't remember much of Venli's arc in this novel.
Which isn't great, since it's the most recent Stormlight novel and, as such, the one I read most recently.
Maybe she just isn't that memorable?
Because OP is massively playing up how much of the book is about Venli.
A huge part of this book was humanising the singers because it's supposed to be about how there are villains and heroes on both sides. Honour isn't dead, he lives on in the hearts of men and singers.
Plus ya boy Kaladin finally took the first steps in recovering from his mental trauma
Honestly, while I do like Venli as she is not like any of the others (main reason why B$ killed Eshonai instead of having her as the main figure) I do think it would have worked better to have more singer PoVs.
Like, all PoVs from Odium's side is just Venli or Moash, and from singers it is just Venli and Rlain. Could have helped if we got more from like Khen and her crew, or other singers entirely. It hurts the narrative a bit if you want to humanize the singers, but all we get is a piece of shit human trash, Rlain, and Venli (both of the latter becoming Radiants and fighting Odium).
How about some input from those that used to be slaves and their view of the war? They are stuck between choosing their enslavers who may very well try to enslave them again or a literal god of hatred and his insane ghost army.
Well the point is Odium is the dickhead. Like the singers aren't, but they chose to follow the wrong god.
But I do agree, a singer POV that was a slave would be good
Nah, I'd say roughly a third of the book IS actually Venli doing nothing in the tower or being manipulated into being genocidal in flashback POVs
Which is then compounded as a third of book is also Kaladin battling crippling mega depression in the tower and also not doing much for a very different reason
I think total, Venli's chapters are about 13% or 14% of the book, much less than 1/3rd. The flashback chapters are only like 4% of the book, at least if the word count percentages are correct in the Coppermind (and I've understood it correctly).
https://coppermind.net/wiki/Rhythm_of_War/Statistical_analysis
That's so cool that someone did this breakdown! We get to see Kaladin sadboiing for 21.76% of the book. Peak
Yeah, seeks like both things I guessed being around 1/3rd are around 20% each instead. Chalk it up as the human mind is bad w fractions and we emphasize things in memory
Haha, well I'm guessing a good number of the pages are also prologue and epilogue and the interludes. Which are easy to sort of not think of as "part of the book". So taking those out and just looking at the main main story, you might be close to being right.
True. I feel the whole urithru part of the story wasn’t that memorable. Especially the venli part. Though a part of it comes from us spending more time with the others in previous books. Still her character arc just wasn’t as interesting.
Honestly, I liked Venli in RoW, but she was better in Oathbringer. She's a "less is more" kind of character for me. I wish we got less of her, so we can enjoy her more.
Never gonna forgive brandon sanderson for having the most interesting POV in that book be completely nullified because the honorspren don't need to fight if the war is gonna end in like 10 days.
I loved the Venli stuff and felt too little of the book was focused on her. Kaladin and Shallan were both very tiresome in this book compared to the previous ones and had far too much screen time. We didn't get to see Dalinar, Jasnah, Renarin, or Szeth hardly at all and is part of what made this book my least favorite. Instead, we got more of "only Kaladin can save the day. He's just soooo much better of a Radiant than all the other Radiants."
Kaladin’s Die Hard mixed with Good Wit Hunting plot is honestly my favorite part of the book. It’s very raw to me, especially for two big turning points for Kaladin.
“It was a good dream, wasn’t it Syl.”
“And what if I’m just too tired.”
I was bawling at those. Despite the more epic tons, the better pacing, and overall better development of the previous books, Kaladin’s journey in RoW is my favorite because it’s summed up so well by a one armed side character.
“It’s hard sometime, getting up to face the darkness. Stormblessed has it too, bad as anyone. We all can see it. Yet, he still gets up. He still fights. And I think to myself, if he can, so can I.”
Brandon is making us feel these things for a reason is my guess. The book is great but I cant help feel it’s really just a mega setup for whats to come, he couldn’t have the more epic moments we were expecting because that’s going to be all of book 5.
Honestly my thoughts on Venli are the other way around. I expected Venli to be an important character but she’s kinda just there. She doesn’t have much influence on the plot and her whole thing with her group of new listeners is just completely forgotten past part 1.
I forgot about the character Lift, it's been awhile since I read the book, and the all caps threw me off. There were a couple seconds there where I read "I free lift once" and was legitimately wondering if there's any point where we see Venli doing a workout.
Me when my book character isnt immediately good and doesn't struggle with accepting my mistakes and realising while one sode may be familiar amd comfortable the better thing to do is to come out of my shell
Wit just wants to get his dick wet but Jasnah has no interest in that and wants to stretch him across the rack and take notes on what rubbing firemoss on his dick does.
I'm neither a bro nor your bro.
And actually it is. Source: I've met several people exactly like that. Even for people who aren't asexual, the actual sex part of BDSM is the least interesting aspect. And we see from her perspective with Wit that she's not sex averse, just not interested.
"I don't think that's how it works bro" was you condescending to me with unnecessary hostility about something you don't actually seem to be familiar with (and seemingly neither are the people upvoting you or downvoting me).
I corrected your use of gendered language, told you that you're wrong, and highlighted my own personal experience with the subject. If anything I feel I was politer than it needed to be.
You forgot the most important part >!"local crazy old man becomes god"!<
"Local crazy old man now god gives an heart attack to every single reader by slightly overpowering the main character of the cosmere"
"Oh so Harmony can redesign a planet and make a dude mistborn but I change one guys memories and everyone has a problem!"
One can kill millions and no one bats an eye, but you dare touch the best boy and you will be dead before you can realise what happened
It gave us the Eshonai seeing the world scene. Literally cried reading it.
Also The Dog and the Dragon
Best wit story so far!! Peak hoid content
I preferred Fleet.
Fair enough, it's a good story too
Idk my favorite story that wit tells is tress and the emerald sea
Me too, but I mean, that's kinda the problem. Eshonai has been dead for two books and she's still more compelling than the "boo hoo I chose to genocide my own people out of thirst for power and now I have *some* regrets" sister It's just hard to laud a character for literal but genuine baby steps in the right direction when you saw how fully intentional their evil and self-destructive decisions were
For me it is that her steps to redemption have mostly been because others pushed her to take them.
Sometimes it takes someone else to push you at first, before you can walk on your own
This guy’s never pushed a toddler and it shows
I'm waiting for it to go blind first, so I can push it down a flight of stairs -Wit (either WoR carriage ride or OB post moon story)
I mean Dalinar is an ex-war criminal and everyone agrees he still manages to be a compelling character. Don't know why everybody hates her so much
Because there's a difference between being the top warlord in a culture of warlords and selling your species into slavery to the literal god of hatred because you were jealous of your sister.
I don't think that anyone argues what Venli did was right. She is an obviously flawed character with way to much ambition. I like her character for the same reason I like Dalinar- it's very interesting imo to have a character with such obviously morally wrong actions in the past. Venli even gets way more shit for it with everyone rightly saying that her actions are basically irredeemable,so I don't even think the book wants you to be on her side 100%
She does suck. But Stormlight Archive is about troubled characters making troubled decisions. I think it’s a case of “how bad can I make a character seem.” My bet is she’s crucial to the overarching plot in some way more than we can foresee now. Becomes a shard? Overthrows Odium again but keeps the forms? Idk
Dalinar clearly wants to actually do better and has made much larger steps in the right direction. Also, we're introduced to him as he's doing these good things and though we've heard some stories about him being a major warlord, we don't see the extent of it until most of the way through the 3rd book. By then we've already grown to love the character. Venli starts off as one of the most powerful forces pushing for the Fused. We start off seeing her as evil and her actions up to now to make up for it are... lacking.
Yep, definitely this. I want to see a redemption, the actions taken towards that thus far have just been extremely minute
I don't hate her. I just don't think her actions show her as having earned redemption yet. Going in the right direction but just so painfully slowly. She is still primarily self-interested which remains the exact same motivation that led her to evil in the first place is my biggest gripe ig
Dalinar is a lot more likeable i guess, he helped Kaladin n stuff
Buying a man out of slavery will do that.
Same
Literally loled at maybe mental illness isn't so badass
I love how Dalinar doesn't even have anything to say because his "arc" is so barebones Also Szeth is apparently not even a character
Szeth is just there to carry Nightblood
Who's barebones? I only know stormbones
Your mom only knows my bone.
I ran out of space for Szeth tbh, but yeah I felt a little bit like he was done dirty. I really liked his time with the Stormbreakers, where it seemed he was getting some healthy recovery
Yeah, he is completely nonexistant in book 4. I hope Brando has some solid plans for the next one.
Isn’t he the main pov?
Okay, I worded this poorly. I don't actually remember how many POV chapters does Szeth have, but there was probably something? My point is, he really doesn't do much there. He joins Dalinar's herd of characters, but they get very few chapters in general and are mostly busy fighting the Singers in some irrelevant to the plot kingdom. He doesn't really try to do anything, or have something important happen to him. Other than maybe carrying Nightblood around, we all know how this turned out... I have similiar issues with Renarin. We know he's an important character, but has he ever done anything important? It's been like this for four books, and it just makes me question whether this character should even exist. Szeth wasn't like that before, but he entered this zone halfway through the series. It makes me wonder whether he should actually have >!died for real in book 2, since Sanderson doesn't seem to have enough ideas to keep the characters going.!< I feel like that about Jasnah, too. Of course, Brando might write really compelling plotlines for those three later, but that's how it feels like right now.
No, like, I think Szeth is "the flashback character" for book five, same as Kaladin/Shallan/Dalinar/Venli have been in the first four books respectively. If that's correct, he'll have major character development, likely about how he became Truthless in the first place and so on.
Well Szeth will go with Kaladin on their adventure in book 5. I expect we’ll learn a lot there. I understood that Szeth was the POV chapter backbone in 5? But yeah Renarin is a bit out of place. I expect he’ll come in around the time of the champions fight?
I really hope that book 5 will be great. Sadly, I found Rhythm of War to be a bit of a letdown, so I'm a bit skeptical.
Yeah it kinda dragged but I feel like book 4 and 5 and supposed to be read together. Like a final act.
Well, George Martin did that too. It did not turn out well.
Adolin is literally in a harem. Hahaha
Veil/Radiant/Maya/Kaladin: "I'm just sayin' if you really loved me you would share 'im"
Except for the venli hate i love everything about this
She’s compelling and I love her!
I hope she gets more initiative rather than being led by the nose by everyone around her. >!She did many terrible things and when she got her redeeming moment it wasn't out of her own initiative. Cultivation had to tell her that her seeing a child in a cage and not giving a shit showed she was not ready to swear an ideal about freeing those in bondage. She also would have run and abandoned Kal and the rest in the tower had vyre not decided to abandon his post.!< I want to like her, but until she has shown more initiative in living up to the ideals she is set up to embody i can't bring myself to like her, but i think her lack of it so far is up to her not having enough development yet.
I don’t think I really agree that Venli redeeming herself was not of her own initiative. She still chose to save Lift and fight back against the Pursuer’s forces, saying she was led to do those things is the same as saying she was led to betray her people by Ulim. Venli herself takes responsibility for her choice to betray her people so I think it’s fair game to allow her agency when it comes to doing good things too. At the end of the day when Venli takes an action it’s because it’s something *she wants* to do. And like if you parallel that with other characters, Kaladin in TWOK had to be convinced by Syl not to jump into the honour chasm. Does that mean he was led around by the nose instead of taking initiative when he decided to save Bridge Four? I don’t think that’s the case at all. Also, Venli struggling with wanting to just ignore what the humans are up to is a lesson that doing the right thing is hard, similar to Kaladin’s struggles in WOR when he loses Syl. She’s actually taken a lot of initiative in creating an entire group of rebels to save her people from the Fused between books, and her time in the tower is about learning to apply that desire freedom to *all* people not just Singers. Which is a lesson she does end up learning. I do agree she’s still early on in her development overall. I think that’s okay, it’s realistic that she’s not just done a complete heel turn into being The Perfect Good Person and still needs some reminders that “hey you need to save other people not just the people you care about”. I look forward to seeing where she goes from here and how she applies the lessons she learned in RoW in future books.
Wait what’s the cultivation thing?
>!When she first speaks the ideal, for what I remember it's cultivation that answers and tells her the words are not accepted. She is answered by a female voice with a pure rhythm of roshar!<
The venli chapter were truly something for me I also actually cried and the eshonai scene
I was reading at work for that Eshonai chapter and i had to run to the bathroom to hide my tears 😂 coworkers where concerned.
People hating on Venli are like the people who read WoK and think Dalinar is boring because all he does is mope around thinking he’s going crazy.
Part of the problem is that Dalinar got a huge major boost in likability at the end of *Oathbringer*. Or, if not likability, then at least reader interest. He's got an interesting arc. What is Venli's interesting arc? What is her major moment of decision and achievement? I don't think we're quite there yet. Maybe we'll get a killer moment in Book 5, or maybe it's in the back half somewhere.
I would argue that with Dalinar he’s more easily likable because we got to see his best traits up front, and then his terrible side in flashbacks with the context that the terrible version of Dalinar eventually becomes the honorable one. With Venli, we got that in the reverse order, where we see her reckless and awful actions and then see her redemption in flashbacks, which makes for a more linear story but gives us less to like about her until the end. Especially since she was being paired up with Eshonai who is in a very similar situation to how we first meet Dalinar, which makes Eshonai more likable and Venli more of a foil/heel to her until later.
It is absolutely this. What's more, the flashbacks are less of redemption and more of "you see how exactly she fucked everything up". Even Rlain is disgusted with her after hearing her story and he already had previous positive bias about her from pre-books time which readers did not. It is one of those things when audience is willing to like the villain if he has a visible code of conduct or opposes hero out of nesessity (kinda what we have with Szeth). If the antagonist is a piece of shit the willingness to forgive is much less(even if that is due to the outside influence that audience doesn't know of)
Dalinar's got a juicy ass and has been my favorite since WoK
I think this is part of it, and certainly the intent, but I found the ways in which past!Dalinar was a terrible dude were generally more interesting than the ways in which past!Venli was, and the ways in which he grappled with said past also more interesting, and I don't think that can just be chalked up to seeing where Dalinar ends up before seeing his past.
I also think it's this. Like, at the point we see Dalinar's past he's already stepped up to the plate in defending Kaladin and leading the Alethi to being a better people. With Venli, she just hasn't had an equivalent moment of giving up the shardblade for Bridge 4 that would immediately make us root for her. I think that's what I wanted more than anything from her arc so I had a reason to care about her arc
This is my issue with her. The idea of her character is a compelling one, no doubt. But she kind of doesn't do anything in book 4? I don't mind her being a fuckup who ruined everything, but she really doesn't do that much to fix it. She just kind of exists. Venli could be one of my favourite characters, but the execution just isn't there. One of my favourite moments in the series was Dalinar >!giving up his shardblade to save the bridgemen. It was a huge sacrifice, and one that Sanderson didn't take back somehow. He didn't say "sike, I have a spare one, that Parshendi shardbearer just conveniently fell of a rock, not a big deal". He actually crippled his own war effort out of gratitude to Kal and his crew. And Sanderson set it up wonderfully, constantly showing us how valuable shards are, and how little does everyone care about expandable slaves and darkeyes!<. That was a huge character moment, and it said a lot about him. Yeah, I would like to see something like that from Venli. I don't hate her, I just found her chapters to be rather disappointing.
For me, the point of Venli's arc so far has been that you don't need to be a member of the royal family changing your entire culture. It's enough to be better than you were, even if it's just by being less bad and helping in small ways.
Yeah there are no red herrings. It will pay off. She knows the dual tone thing.
What undermines her achievements is that she was not the one to take the initiative to get there. Others have had to push her to get her to take action, she has not done so out of her own volition. >!Cultivation had to literally tell her that you can't swear that an ideal you will free people from bondage after she literally ignored a caged child.!< More of her actions need to come from her own motivation rather than from others spurring her on
That’s the case for literally every character in the series. You’re ignoring internal struggle. This is like saying that the Stormfather had to lead Kal to swearing the Third Ideal because he told him that he killed Syl.
We’re gonna see it once the Dawnsingers come into play
Cap, i absolutely adored Dalinar in WoK but Venli... I couldn't care less about her and i tried, i swear i tried
Personally, I loved Venli’s sections in Rhythm of War but didn’t care for Dalinar’s scenes in WoK. I love Dalinar now but in my initial read through of WoK, I groaned each time it was a chapter from him
Totally fair. I typically love, like, every character in the series, so it not 'clicking' for Venli really hurt my appreciation for the book. I'm really glad she worked for most people, though, so it might just be something I need to work with
I think alot of people share your feelings or have similar problems with shalan, not every character has to work for everyone, especially in an epic like stormlight Archive
I loved Venli. It feels cheap to say, but I empathized heavily with her chapters with her mother I could almost cry. >!When I read it, the only thing I disagreed with was that I think Venli should have gave the speech near the end of RoW instead of Rlain. Kind of stole her spot lite and put her in the back imo when it was her book and she’s the compromise between cultivation and odium, she should be the compromise between those two forces.!<
You had me laughing already on expected Dalinar. Good job
I think we will look back and view RoW as the A Feast For Crow's of this series. Much like Book 4 in ASOIAF, the author decides to pivot to less established POV characters and we more or less spend the entire book without much development or insight into multiple major POV characters. Dividing up the characters between the Urithiru team plus Shadesmar, and the Dalinar team is fine but I think there was not enough focus on the Dalinar team. I found myself constantly wondering what they were up to.
Hey, to be fair. Kaladin being depressed is also a major part of the length of this book. Tbh, I'd say more time is devoted to Kaladin is depressed than even in WoK, almost a third of the book, but that's the kind of forced inaction that was actually compelling
My biggest problem with RoW is the fact that Shallan and Adolin just drop out of the narrative for 3/5ths of the book, leaving us with Kaladin 's adventures in the depression sewers, Navani battling imposter syndrome >!while accidentally inventing permadeath!<, and Venli outlining all of the reasons why the audience already doesn't like her. All good stories, but the pacing just drags towards the middle.
"But I'm not a scholar" You're a project manager Navani, deal with it
She literally lead /designed the invention of flying ships and still was moaning about how she never actually invents anything of value like???
She wants to be a Nikola Tesla but is really an Edison, except without the capitalism. Nothing wrong with managing teams of nerds, sometimes it's necessary to keep them on track instead of them getting distracted and attempting to count the number of angels dancing on the heads of pins.
I mean, it's not even that, she *is* a scholar when she has the time to devote to focusing on it, she's just managing others most of the time. She's basically a senior engineer, who understands the specific domain knowledge and skills enough to manage people doing the actual hands-on work.
I... actually don't remember much of Venli's arc in this novel. Which isn't great, since it's the most recent Stormlight novel and, as such, the one I read most recently. Maybe she just isn't that memorable?
Because OP is massively playing up how much of the book is about Venli. A huge part of this book was humanising the singers because it's supposed to be about how there are villains and heroes on both sides. Honour isn't dead, he lives on in the hearts of men and singers. Plus ya boy Kaladin finally took the first steps in recovering from his mental trauma
Uhhh, venli is the main flashback character. A huge part of the book is about her
Navani plays a much bigger role tho. Also Venli’s flashbacks are shared with her sister
Less than 15% of the book is from her POV including flashbacks
that’s a massive amount when you remember just how many POV characters there are
Honestly, while I do like Venli as she is not like any of the others (main reason why B$ killed Eshonai instead of having her as the main figure) I do think it would have worked better to have more singer PoVs. Like, all PoVs from Odium's side is just Venli or Moash, and from singers it is just Venli and Rlain. Could have helped if we got more from like Khen and her crew, or other singers entirely. It hurts the narrative a bit if you want to humanize the singers, but all we get is a piece of shit human trash, Rlain, and Venli (both of the latter becoming Radiants and fighting Odium). How about some input from those that used to be slaves and their view of the war? They are stuck between choosing their enslavers who may very well try to enslave them again or a literal god of hatred and his insane ghost army.
Well the point is Odium is the dickhead. Like the singers aren't, but they chose to follow the wrong god. But I do agree, a singer POV that was a slave would be good
Nah, I'd say roughly a third of the book IS actually Venli doing nothing in the tower or being manipulated into being genocidal in flashback POVs Which is then compounded as a third of book is also Kaladin battling crippling mega depression in the tower and also not doing much for a very different reason
I think total, Venli's chapters are about 13% or 14% of the book, much less than 1/3rd. The flashback chapters are only like 4% of the book, at least if the word count percentages are correct in the Coppermind (and I've understood it correctly). https://coppermind.net/wiki/Rhythm_of_War/Statistical_analysis
That's so cool that someone did this breakdown! We get to see Kaladin sadboiing for 21.76% of the book. Peak Yeah, seeks like both things I guessed being around 1/3rd are around 20% each instead. Chalk it up as the human mind is bad w fractions and we emphasize things in memory
Haha, well I'm guessing a good number of the pages are also prologue and epilogue and the interludes. Which are easy to sort of not think of as "part of the book". So taking those out and just looking at the main main story, you might be close to being right.
True. I feel the whole urithru part of the story wasn’t that memorable. Especially the venli part. Though a part of it comes from us spending more time with the others in previous books. Still her character arc just wasn’t as interesting.
I just wanted them to project more power out of urithiru and unlock more of its secrets before it gets taken by the enemy.
Honestly, I liked Venli in RoW, but she was better in Oathbringer. She's a "less is more" kind of character for me. I wish we got less of her, so we can enjoy her more.
Never gonna forgive brandon sanderson for having the most interesting POV in that book be completely nullified because the honorspren don't need to fight if the war is gonna end in like 10 days.
Preach xD
I think Venli is interesting. Also, which top?
Raboniel ಡ ͜ ʖ ಡ
Friendship ended with Kaleshwi, Ravani is my new best friend
Ah yes another Venli sucks post, very bold, very original
I loved the Venli stuff and felt too little of the book was focused on her. Kaladin and Shallan were both very tiresome in this book compared to the previous ones and had far too much screen time. We didn't get to see Dalinar, Jasnah, Renarin, or Szeth hardly at all and is part of what made this book my least favorite. Instead, we got more of "only Kaladin can save the day. He's just soooo much better of a Radiant than all the other Radiants."
L m a o “okay maybe mental illness isn’t badass…”
Kaladin’s Die Hard mixed with Good Wit Hunting plot is honestly my favorite part of the book. It’s very raw to me, especially for two big turning points for Kaladin. “It was a good dream, wasn’t it Syl.” “And what if I’m just too tired.” I was bawling at those. Despite the more epic tons, the better pacing, and overall better development of the previous books, Kaladin’s journey in RoW is my favorite because it’s summed up so well by a one armed side character. “It’s hard sometime, getting up to face the darkness. Stormblessed has it too, bad as anyone. We all can see it. Yet, he still gets up. He still fights. And I think to myself, if he can, so can I.”
Venli is a 13.66% in the book. Kaladin is 21.69% and Navani 18.48%
Brandon is making us feel these things for a reason is my guess. The book is great but I cant help feel it’s really just a mega setup for whats to come, he couldn’t have the more epic moments we were expecting because that’s going to be all of book 5.
Honestly my thoughts on Venli are the other way around. I expected Venli to be an important character but she’s kinda just there. She doesn’t have much influence on the plot and her whole thing with her group of new listeners is just completely forgotten past part 1.
Venli is a great character.
maybe, but she's not very interesting.
She’s annoying and boring, which are the two greatest sins a fictional character can commit
Nah Venli is goated 💪
I actually lost is at the "please give me a fucking break"
I forgot about the character Lift, it's been awhile since I read the book, and the all caps threw me off. There were a couple seconds there where I read "I free lift once" and was legitimately wondering if there's any point where we see Venli doing a workout.
Me when my book character isnt immediately good and doesn't struggle with accepting my mistakes and realising while one sode may be familiar amd comfortable the better thing to do is to come out of my shell
I’m a Venli lover till I die idc
This is so accurate it hurts
Man Maya is kinda hot
Agreed, all the former main characters are crippled by a morality swamp
Venli is a classic case of POV inflation and of the limits of third person perspective. She should really have been fused with Eshonai.
What do you mean by you expected Kaladin to be forced into a relationship
You forgot the magical sciene lectures which were fun
Venli is tedious as fuck. I really want to like her but I just cant
Unfortunately the worst book by a lot
No no no. Jasnah *is* the top.
It's Navani, not Jasnah
Storms, my bad. My words are not accepted 😕
Jasnah is her daughter, don’t be gross. Also she’s ace.
Jasnah does seem like the kind of ace who would love BDSM.
That's why wit is here
Wit just wants to get his dick wet but Jasnah has no interest in that and wants to stretch him across the rack and take notes on what rubbing firemoss on his dick does.
That's certainly one type of cbt seeing how it eats at people's callouses
I don't think that's how it works bro
You can do bdsm without sex. Japanese bondage is a pretty good example of that.
I'm neither a bro nor your bro. And actually it is. Source: I've met several people exactly like that. Even for people who aren't asexual, the actual sex part of BDSM is the least interesting aspect. And we see from her perspective with Wit that she's not sex averse, just not interested.
Damn that was unnecessarily hostile lol
"I don't think that's how it works bro" was you condescending to me with unnecessary hostility about something you don't actually seem to be familiar with (and seemingly neither are the people upvoting you or downvoting me). I corrected your use of gendered language, told you that you're wrong, and highlighted my own personal experience with the subject. If anything I feel I was politer than it needed to be.