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Journey Before Destination: Words of Radiance Spoiler Review

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Journey Before Destination: Words of Radiance Spoiler Review

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Journey Before Destination: Words of Radiance Spoiler Review

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Published on March 4, 2014

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Brandon Sanderson Words of Radiance Stormlight Archive

It’s here! At long last, after much hand-rubbing and finger-steepling, it’s here! Words of Radiance has arrived, my friends. And so we can talk! We can sing! We can dance! SPOILERS ABOUND! Okay, enough with the shouting and exclamation marks (and this is not France). Assuming you’ve got your copy, and that you have read it as fast as you possibly could, we’re ready to dig in. But I have to say it, as has been said on spoiler reviews so many times before:

Please, please don’t read this until you’ve finished the book.

Personally, I usually don’t care if people want to spoil a book for themselves, but in this case the way things are revealed is just as delicious as what is revealed, and you really need to get there the right way. This review will massively, totally, completely spoil the book otherwise. Journey before destination. Read it first; we’re not going anywhere. But when you’re done…

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

This was a really hard book to “review.” There’s so much in it, and so much to talk about, it was hard to know where to start. To put a handle on it, let’s take a look at what we expected to see, and what we finally saw.

Kaladin and Bridge 4

Kaladin
We all went into this expecting Kaladin to become a full Windrunner, fight Szeth (and win, of course), and make himself invaluable to Dalinar in returning the Knights Radiant. And… we got what we expected, just maybe not quite the way we expected it.

He’s not a full Windrunner yet, but he’s made a lot of progress. Dude can fly—I say that counts for something. He learned his third Ideal, although he sure went at it the hard way. For some unknown reason, I didn’t expect him to do the bad-attitude thing in this book, and let’s just say it’s a good thing I rarely work at a desk. Either it or my head would be in a world of trouble. He’s only 20 years old, so maybe he gets a pass on some of his arrogance, but he could sure benefit from a little more big-picture thinking. Early on in the training exercises, he learned that under certain circumstances, his Stormlight skills deserted him.

“What happened?” Kaladin asked. “The Stormlight drained from me. I felt it go.”

“Who were you protecting?” Syl asked.

“I . . . I was practicing how to fight, like when I practiced with Skar and Rock down in the chasms.”

“Is that really what you were doing?” Syl asked.

That, my son, is called a warning, if you’re paying attention. (Or, for the reader, foreshadowing…) His whole purpose as a Windrunner is to protect, but it seems to take a while for him to figure this out. Not only are the means as important as the end, the motivation is critical to success. Back in The Way of Kings, his father gave him a great picture of this; with one tiny slip of the knife, he could have rid Hearthstone of Roshone, but the means were simply unacceptable. Kaladin wasn’t listening properly:

“Somebody has to start. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right. If nobody starts, then others cannot follow…

“The lighteyes don’t care about life,” Lirin said. “So I must…”

But his father was wrong. It was a stunning, frightening revelation. This wasn’t idle fancy or daydreaming about the glory of battle. This was real.

At that moment, Kaladin knew he could kill, if he needed to. Some people—like a festering finger or a leg shattered beyond repair—just needed to be removed.

And so he continues to think that he has the wisdom and insight to know who needs to be removed, and in that arrogance he destroys his bond with Sylphrena. I suppose we should give him a certain amount of credit for continuing to live and fight as best he can even without her, but it was just so stupid. To think he had the right to decide that the kingdom would be better off without the king… well, it reminds me all too much of the “Side Carry” chapter.

On the bright side, it set up one of the most amazingly glorious scenes in the book. I get goosebumps just thinking about it! First, the realization that “The king was Dalinar’s Tien.” Oh, the tears… Yes, Kaladin. The fact that Elhokar has made some really stupid decisions doesn’t mean you can murder him, or stand by and let someone else do so. He matters, even if you don’t like him. He matters to someone. And so Kaladin returns, at great physical cost, to find and protect the king, even when it’s hopeless; he’s beaten down, critically wounded, ready to die, and he gets up one last time to do what has to be done. No more standing by to let people be killed for the greater good. And then, he finally gets it:

“If I protect . . .” he coughed. “If I protect . . . only the people I like, it means that I don’t care about doing what is right.” If he did that, he only cared about what was convenient for himself.

That wasn’t protecting. That was selfishness.

And then a line that moves me to tears, after so many rereads:

He is mine! a feminine voice said. I claim him.

I’ve read this entire book twice, and sections of it about ten times, and I still choke up. Too weak to stand, he stands anyway. Too weak to hold his knife, it falls from his hand.

“I will protect even those I hate,” Kaladin whispered through bloody lips. “So long as it is right.”

And then, reaching out his trembling hand with his last iota of strength, Sylphrena herself becomes his Shardblade, returning his powers, and he explodes with Stormlight. Oh, the glory! At last, he can fly to the rescue, because he can let go of his anger and his grudges and be about the work of protecting people. It doesn’t end there, of course. But we’ll talk about the rest of it in a few minutes.

Bridge Four
I think we all expected Bridge Four to stay together as a unit; I’m not sure we quite expected the role they would play in bringing the rest of the bridge crews up to speed. We didn’t see a lot of this after the first couple of parts, but enough to know that those thousand men are in training and may become a significant asset. For now, I’m just going to look more closely at a few key players.

Moash
A magnet for wrong decisions if ever there was one, this man had so much potential and he continually channeled it in the wrong directions. He finally got his Shards, which was permitted indirectly by the king himself, and he still couldn’t let go of his misdirected desire for revenge. I think I’m glad Kaladin didn’t kill him, but now he’s connected to Taravangian—and I don’t trust that one, either. There was always a bitter edge to Moash, and now that we know where it came from we can understand… but that doesn’t mean he’s right.

Teft
Well, we had hoped to find out what his backstory was, and the deal with the Envisagers. I guess we found out. This makes me very sad, and also a little bewildered. How long had those people been trying unsuccessfully to trigger Surgebinding? How many had died in vain? I guess the second answer depends on the first, but it doesn’t seem like so many should die before they realize that not a single one has manifested any signs of power, and maybe they’re wasting lives that could have been better spent in more productive pursuits—or at least less destructive methods. The punishment for their “crime” was a bit weird, though. “These people keep killing themselves! This cannot be allowed! Off with their heads!” Say what? Once again I’m grateful for my lack of a handy desk.

Shen
I don’t recall seeing much by way of expectations regarding Shen, but he sure took a step up in this book. For one thing, we get his actual name: Rlain. For another, he proves that he’s smarter than they thought, when he points out that his singular treatment as the only member of Bridge Four without a spear means that he really is still a slave. This leads to a couple of very cool moments, including his getting that spear and his return to the Alethi.

Perhaps we should have realized early on that Shen was more than he seemed. In the very early Eshonai chapters, we were told that dullform was very similar in appearance to the sprenless slaveform, a.k.a. parshmen, and that they used it now to spy on the humans. Maybe some of you clever folks figured that out right away; I don’t recall thinking about it at that point, but when Rlain disappeared, it became obvious enough even for me. The affirmation of Kaladin’s (and Dalinar’s) decision to treat him with respect was gorgeous, when he returned to the Alethi with news of the Parshendi changes. Poor Rlain. He went in good faith to spy on the humans, but when he returned to report back to his people, they had abandoned their four-and-a-half-millennia avoidance, and had returned to the old gods.

I didn’t have many specific expectations of Shen coming into Words of Radiance, but I sure have some for Book Three!

Lopen
Ah, the Lopen. Throughout the book, he continued to bring humor, optimism, and encouragement to Kaladin and Bridge Four, and we’ve all loved him for that since he first walked in. He’s been trustworthy and resourceful, and his endless supply of cousins is hilarious. (“There’s a cousin for that.” Heh.) I’ll admit to being a bit suspicious of them at first, because they kept showing up for no apparent reason, but the scene in Little Herdaz explained so much about the Herdazian attitude toward family that I was completely reassured. What an incredibly clever place to hide the king! I adore the Lopen. And I want to be his mother.

Whatever we might have expected of Lopen in this book, he expected to glow—and he did! One of my favorite lines from the entire book:

“Oh, storms yes! Everybody, give the Lopen your spheres! I have glowing that needs to be done.”

 

The Kholin clan

Although they aren’t quite the main characters (I give that to Kaladin and Shallan, at least for now), this family stands at the center. Dalinar’s visions, Jasnah’s scholarship and Surgebinding, and of course Elhokar as the Alethi king, ensure that they’re central to the plot. I’m still not sure what to expect from them at any given moment, though.

Jasnah
First off, I have to note the cleverness of the prologue scheme, wherein we saw that night six years ago, the night of Gavilar’s assassination. Through Jasnah’s eyes, we see many of the same people and events, with some very informative additions. The fact that Jasnah is a repeat customer of more than a dozen assassins is a bit mind-boggling. (Good grief! Who does she have them assassinating? How is anyone in Alethkar still alive, with her around?) Even more interesting is her introduction to Shadesmar, which is both creepy and astonishing.

At the end of the previous book, with Jasnah and Shallan heading for the Shattered Plains, I think we all expected Jasnah to lead the scholarship that would find Urithiru and figure out what the Parshendi deal was. I, for one, did not expect her to die in Part One! Once she was dead, I wasn’t quite sure whether to expect her to return or not. She came back, all right—but what a return! Was she in Shadesmar the whole time? Was she off-world altogether? She was able to make alterations to her clothing, wherever she was—and now I expect to learn some very interesting things from her in the next book!

Adolin
At the end of The Way of Kings, Adolin seemed like a nice boy, but not a lot else. What expectations did we have for him? There was always the possibility he’d become a Knight Radiant, though it wasn’t all that sure. In fact, I don’t recall seeing much discussion of what readers expected of Adolin, other than the general hope that he’d stand strong with his father and be useful. With the early release chapters we discovered that he would be betrothed to Shallan, which sent the shipping mechanisms into high gear. (Oh, that was fun to watch. Mwahaha.)

What we didn’t expect, I think, was Adolin-the-elegant-duelist performing an absolutely brutal beatdown on another Shardbearer in his first bout. We (or at least I) didn’t expect to see him behaving so badly to Kaladin—that sneering “bridgeboy” thing made me want to beat him severely about the head and shoulders. On the other hand, who expected him to do such a complete about-face halfway through? That scene set aside the last things I didn’t like about Adolin, because when he decides he’s wrong, there’s no grudging admission stuff—he flat out joins forces with Kaladin, and accords him respect and friendship. Aww.

And expectations aside, that overmatched “duel” of one to four was amazing amazing amazing.

Last but not least, I don’t think anyone predicted that he would finish the book by getting into a fistfight with Sadeas, and end up shoving a knife into his eye. (Ewww. Brandon. Did you have to?) I’m pretty sure we all cheered to know Sadeas was dead, but I’m really not sure what this says about where Adolin is headed. Was it murder? Was it a fair fight? Discuss. (I certainly hope that Sadeas is all the way dead, though. If he comes back to life as foul as ever, I’m going to climb into the book and kill him myself.)

While we’re on the subject of our fair-haired boy… I’m going to insert my loony theory section. I have a theory about Adolin: that he will be a Knight Radiant of the order associated with Kalak (Ironstance!), and that this order is most likely the Willshapers; further, that he will somehow be able to revivify the spren that was his Blade. That last may be wishful thinking, but he has consistently refused to name the Blade because it obviously has a name of its own, and he talks to it before he goes into a duel. I’ve got no proof, but I sure like the idea.

Renarin
Renarin is a Radiant! Renarin is a Truthwatcher! Happy dance! Happy dance! This, I did not expect. Hoped, maybe, a little, but certainly didn’t expect. Fascinating revelations with this boy. The thing that blew my mind (which you likely don’t catch the first time through—at least, I didn’t) was that the very first time he touched that Blade, minutes after Adolin won it in the Chapter 14 duel, he grimaced. Didja notice that? Eventually we find out why: He already had a developing spren connection and he was hearing that horrible screaming from the dead spren. And he did his perceived duty anyway. He bonded the Blade, he tried to practice with it, he tried to use it in battle, he used it to help Shallan figure out the Oathgate, and all with that screaming in his head every storming time! With nothing more than a grimace when he summoned it, and a sigh of relief when he dismissed it, I say the man has incredible mental strength. He deserves to be a Radiant, unless that turns out to be an ancient Chinese curse, like “interesting times”….

Elhokar
Here’s another character for whom we had little to no expectation, except the hint that perhaps he could see Cryptics and might therefore become a Lightweaver. That would explain the cracked gems in his Shardplate very neatly, too. Well… no. We aren’t any closer to knowing whether or not he’ll become a Radiant, or why those gems fractured. What we found, instead, was a deeply insecure man who didn’t get nearly enough training for the job he’s been saddled with. A man who wanted to do the right thing, who wanted to be a good leader and a good king—and simply doesn’t know how. His scene with Kaladin was poignant, revealing a man who’d never been taught self-discipline, who had to learn the hard way who not to follow, but smart enough to know a genuine leader when he saw one. Also? A king learning humility at the hands of a Herdazian matriarch… Heh.

Dalinar

“ ‘As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.’ ”

Dalinar met and exceeded expectation. Not only did he become Highprince of War, he found ways to turn disparagement to his advantage. He continued to receive visions, to piece things together, and to act boldly on what he learned. He found ways to be both statesman and warrior, though not without a certain amount of frustration and setbacks. His continuing relationship with Navani is fun to watch, because not only do they love each other, they respect each other and draw on one another’s strengths.

And he bonded the Stormfather as his spren.

Yeah, look at that again. Dalinar is spren-bonded to the Stormfather himself. And so he has become a Bondsmith, an Order with very few members, but with great power and, presumably, insight. I wonder if this means that the Stormfather will no longer block the honorspren from returning and bonding more Windrunners.

Incidentally, I’d like to hear some theories here: What is that Blade Dalinar bonded when he was “ill” for a week, and then unbonded when he became a Bondsmith? I originally thought it was Taln’s Honorblade, which seemed a bit weird, but… okay. However, it’s described thus: “Wider than most, it was almost cleaverlike in appearance.” That really doesn’t sound much like Taln’s in The Way of Kings epilogue, which was “long, narrow, and straight, shaped like an enormous spike.” But clearly it’s not a known Blade, so… where did it come from? And it screams when Dalinar summons it after forming his bond with the Stormfather (!!!), so it can’t be an Honorblade, because they aren’t dead-spren-Blades. (Szeth’s/Jezrien’s doesn’t scream when Kaladin holds it.) So what is it? Where did it come from? I want to know.

 

Shallan

Well, we knew this was Shallan’s book, and so we had plenty of expectations. First, that she’d make it to the Shattered Plains with Jasnah, that she’d end up in some kind of romantic entanglement, that she’d develop her Lightweaver skills, that she’d use her Shardblade… and of course that we’d find out where she got that Blade in the first place. As I said before, “I can almost guarantee that no one will look at her the same way, whether you loved her, hated her, or anywhere between. I won’t promise that you’ll love her. I won’t promise that you’ll even like her. But I promise you won’t see her the same way you did before.”

Main plot
She made it to the Shattered Plains, all right, but not with Jasnah. In retrospect, it’s kind of amazing to realize just how much Jasnah taught her in those first few chapters, and how much those lessons enabled Shallan to survive and make her way not only to the Shattered Plains, but through the political minefield of the warcamps and across the Plains to the center. There was a general expectation that she would figure out how to get to Urithiru (albeit we expected Jasnah to be more involved in that…), and she did, but in just about the least expected way possible.

She certainly ended up with a romantic entanglement, and it was really quite delightful to find the “too-obvious!” match-up turning out to be so much fun. And, really, so good for both of them. Her straightforward curiosity and complete failure to flirt properly are so exactly what Adolin needs. I have to confess that as soon as it became clear that they were both smitten, my first thought was, “Which one is going to die?” So far, happily, neither one, although there are no guarantees for Book Three. Adolin has become quite the loose cannon on deck, so… I don’t know. I hope things work out for them, but I’m not sure I expect it! I think they’re a great pair, and if she’s a bit quicker with words than he is, it’s not a problem. It’s not like he’s stupid, he has just oriented his intelligence toward warcraft rather than wordplay so far.

One thing most of us weren’t expecting was the revelation of Shallan’s ability to simply not remember the things she dared not think about. There were a few small hints in The Way of Kings, perhaps, but only recognizable in hindsight. At first I wondered about her lack of grieving for Jasnah, but then I put it down to a need for survival. As the hints built up, though… it’s one of the least of many, many things this poor child learned to simply not think about, to the point of being unable to acknowledge their existence. Not that she blocked Jasnah’s death that thoroughly, but she nearly blocked all the grief.

That Shardblade we expected to see certainly turned up again—in multiple forms. How soon did y’all twig to the fact that it was Pattern all along? That she really didn’t need ten heartbeats, and that she’s been bonded to this Cryptic since she was about ten years old? That yes, indeed, that Blade was her very own, original, living spren? That was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. In fact, I’ve decided to forgive Tyn for existing, because she gave Shallan the necessary reason to summon her Blade again.

Lightweaver. I hope you looked at the Ars Arcanum and saw the list of Surges there. It explains a lot. In this case, it explains why Lightweaving includes both visual and auditory effects. What really stunned me was the realization that Shallan must have spoken at least the first Ideal about seven years ago. Kaladin had to speak his third Ideal before he got his Blade, but there’s no guarantee that it works the same way for every Order. Or within an Order, for that matter; it might be mostly based on the need of the moment, as long as you’ve spoken the first Ideal. The development and exploration of Shallan’s newfound abilities was cool stuff, though. It will be fascinating to see what else a Lightweaver can do.

Flashback Sequence
The second major thing about Shallan, of course, is the development of her backstory. And here’s where I know I’m going to make some people angry. I do not, and cannot, and will not hate Brightlord Davar. I feel sorry for him. Deeply, excruciatingly sorry for him. (Yes, I feel equally sorry for his children; I’ll get there in a minute.)

When I look at his story, though, it hurts deep down in my heart. Here’s a man who had a relatively happy life—pretty wife, four sons, one beloved little daughter, and a comfortable home. I’m sure he had his moments of frustration (what father doesn’t?), but they were happy together.

Shallan could remember a time when she’d rarely, if ever, seen him angry. Those days were long, long dead.

(Chapter 45)

What happened? His daughter, the precious little girl he adored, started doing… strange things. Things she shouldn’t be able to do. Things like the Knights Radiant, the betrayers of mankind. She wove illusions that could move and speak. Her drawings became reality. As a parent, that would be amazing and a little scary. But then his wife—her mother—apparently connected with one of the (how many?) societies of people who wanted to destroy any incipient Surgebinder as quickly as possible. I suspect that the arguments with his wife began then, though I don’t have hard evidence for that. In any case, he argued with his wife and her friend, defending his little girl. And they tried to kill her.

He tried to defend her, to stop them. He fought with the other man, and managed to hurt him, but in the end he was pinned on the floor, watching his wife—her mother—approaching their eleven-year-old daughter with a knife. To kill her. His little girl defended herself, with her own Shardblade that no one had ever seen before, and his wife died instead of his daughter. His tenderness toward Shallan, at the end of that first flashback, was heart-rending. How his heart must have been aching, and in the midst of it his first action was to comfort and soothe and shelter his little girl.

And he never told anyone who really killed his wife.

He loved his girl, and he never told anyone—but can you imagine living with the lies he allowed to be believed? It destroyed him. There was no proof, so he was never prosecuted, but everyone, including his sons, believed that he had murdered his wife. For that matter, they believed that his wife had taken a lover, which… is perhaps a minor point, but it also was a lie. And so he descended into anger and madness.

At the same time, that precious little girl can pull out a Shardblade to defend herself. How terrifying is that for a parent? For six years, this man lived with accusations of murder, hiding the identity of the real killer for her own safety. At the same time, he also lived with the knowledge that however angry he got, he dared not give her cause to fear harm at his hands, or he could end up with a Shardblade through his spine, too.

This picture, of a man who both adored and feared his little girl, who sheltered her at great cost and who crumbled under the pressure of that cost… this picture tears me apart. I ache for this man.

As for his children, I ache for them too. The sons, allowed to think their father murdered their mother, and in front of their beloved little sister, could do nothing but hate him. As their father fell into depression and anger, he took it out on them, twisting them further. As always, when imperfect people interact negatively in such close confines, all the worst traits are brought out in each one until the entire family is broken.

And Shallan… poor Shallan. It wasn’t her fault, but she couldn’t help believing that it was, because her abilities were at the core of it all. I’m no psychologist, but I’m told that this kind of voluntary amnesia is a well-documented means of dealing with stresses too great to be borne. The shock of having her parents fighting over her abilities, of her mother trying to kill her because of those abilities, and of her own frightened reaction resulting in her mother’s death, all combined with her heretofore calm and sheltered life, would certainly qualify as “stresses too great to be borne,” in my opinion. Add to that her father’s fits of anger, her brothers’ various forms of escape, and finally the night of first her stepmother’s and then her father’s murders, and it may be no wonder her mind simply refused to acknowledge any of it.

On a personal note, having read all this, I have had a great deal of difficulty being patient with people who repeatedly comment on what an awful person Shallan is and what losers her brothers are. It’s so easy to simply look at the surface presentation and judge them as a waste of breath; when you see what has happened to them, what put them where they are… maybe the judgmental attitudes are a little misguided, eh? Then again, that’s true in real life. So there’s that.

In terms of literary appreciation, Sanderson did a superb job of gradually revealing a grim and terrifying youth, as well as Shallan’s means of coping with it. The increasing awareness of her ability to simply block out anything she didn’t want to hear or remember, and the way that ability reconciled the hints of her past with her present (apparent) superficiality, was brilliantly done. And I’m a little shocked that he made me feel sorry for her father in spite of things like this:

Father stood outside. Shallan could make out a crumpled form beyond him, lying on the floor of the hallway. Minara, the serving maid. Her body didn’t lie right, one arm bent at the wrong angle.
Father entered Shallan’s room and shut the door behind him. “You know I would never hurt you, Shallan,” he said softly.
She nodded, tears leaking from her eyes.

“I would not want to have to punish anyone else because of you, Shallan,” Father said.

(Chapter 48)

That makes me angry, because it’s such a terrible way to manipulate a child—but at the same time, it reveals the depth of his fear of her, and that brings me back around to pity mixed with the anger. It’s a broken, dysfunctional family, and I feel deeply, painfully sorry for all of them.

Sigh. Moving on.

 

Everyone Else

Szeth
We certainly had expectations for this one—primarily, that he would attempt to kill Dalinar, that Kaladin would fight him, and that Szeth would lose somehow. (Because he couldn’t possibly be allowed to kill Kaladin!) Show of hands, folks: who actually expected Szeth to show up and have that big confrontation with Kaladin less than halfway through the book? Once again, things happened earlier than anticipated, and not at all as expected. Kaladin was so clearly not ready yet, and frankly the only reason he survived is that Szeth was completely blown away by the fact that Kaladin could use Stormlight and heal his Blade-severed hand.

At last the tormented man learns the truth, and hides from it in comforting lies from Taravangian. Too bad for him that Kaladin has also learned the truth, and has a Shardblade that is also a spear, a hammer, a shield, a halberd… Is there anyone here who didn’t make at least a little bit of noise when Syl said, Oh. That’s right. You probably want me to be a spear, don’t you? Szeth finally had to face the truth—that he was, in fact, not Truthless, and all the murder had been based on a lie instead. And he just let Kaladin kill him.

Turns out he’s only mostly dead. This Darkness guy is creepy, and perhaps even creepier with the proof that he is indeed Nalan, the Herald associated with Justice, who has been going around digging up whatever “crimes” he can find in the past of any incipient Surgebinder, and executing them on the pretext of “justice.” Speaking of expectations… what do you expect of Szeth now that he has Nightblood to mess with his head? That’s just painful to contemplate. Will he actually be bonded to a spren and be a real Skybreaker? Book Three just can’t come soon enough…

Gaz
We expected to see Gaz again, and perhaps learn what was behind his disappearance. To some extent, we did; he owed more money than he could possibly repay, and so he deserted. We still don’t know how he ran up such a debt, or whether it will still come back to haunt him. For now, he’s Shallan’s, which was a development no one foresaw. He’s actually a rather likeable guy now, and I was pretty impressed with him finding Shallan a copy of Words of Radiance. What think you: is his change of heart a result of loyalty to the one who freed him from his impossible debt, or to Shallan’s Lightweaving on him? Or both? There remains some mystery to this one.

Taravangian
I can’t wait to hear what y’all think of Taravangian now. Even the early revelation of his “gift” from the Nightwatcher didn’t prepare me for the fullness of what was revealed in his Interlude. I’m assuming (for the moment) that his Diagram has to do with Cultivation and her ability to see into the future, but I find it hard to believe anyone following that closely to something they themselves came up with when they were off-the-scale brilliant. He has made a god out of what he was on that one day, and… I don’t trust it.

Zahel
Well, I sure hope y’all read Warbreaker recently. Now we know why Brandon wouldn’t post his initial version of The Way of Kings, even though he’s never been reluctant to share his unpolished work and let us see the process. He didn’t want to spoil that surprise. (For anyone like me who didn’t catch this, I’ll let others tell you in the comments, just in case you want to go back and try to figure it out for yourself.)

 

Plot Elements

Finding Urithiru
Plenty of theories have been floated about the location and access to Urithiru; some placed it on the Shattered Plains, some in Shinovar, some in or near the Purelake, some even on another planet in the Roshar system. As of the end of The Way of Kings, I’m not sure I saw any speculation connecting the Oathgates with Urithiru. It was exciting to see the way it really works, and then to realize that we’ve seen other Oathgates and just didn’t recognize them. We still don’t know exactly where Urithiru is, or whether it contains the kind of information Jasnah was hoping for, but at least it’s found. As a side exercise, it’s very interesting to go back to the previous book and look at all the limited information on Urithiru; it all makes perfect sense when you know what it really is. Now we can expect to learn more in the next book or two.

The Parshendi
Also now known as the Listeners, we learn about the Parshendi just in time to develop sympathy for them and then watch them all turn into Voidbringers. Or something related to Voidbringers, anyway. In looking back through the epigraphs in The Way of Kings, the hints really are all there, so the reader who expected to find the Parshendi/Voidbringer connection was rewarded. Maybe not quite the way you’d have expected, though… The reader who expected the Parshendi to be the good guys and the Alethi the bad guys wasn’t that far off, either—not during The Way of Kings. Had the Alethi sought peace earlier, they might have found allies rather than enemies.

Instead, we find them pushed to the edge of survival, and therefore the edge of desperation. While the sprenless slaveform Parshmen are still out there, it’s not really the same thing as the voluntary choices made by the Listeners. At great personal cost, they have searched to find forms that would help their people survive while still refusing admittance to “the old gods”—Odium, and the apparently god-like spren associated with him. (Combining information from Eshonai and Taravangian, am I the only one who thinks the Unmade are Odium-spren, something on the order of the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher? I’ll bet I’m not…)

It was especially sad to see the whole thing through Eshonai’s eyes, as we learned about Narak and the various forms, as we met her mother and sister, as we began to understand the Rhythms. To see her preparing to meet Dalinar and ask for peace, knowing that he was hoping for the same thing—and then to have it all snatched away by her decision to take Venli’s place and bond the stormspren. Her own mind, screaming deep down inside, as her consciousness is overcome by Odium. Her avoidance of Peace, even when she was willing to attune the old Rhythms, because that’s where the screaming was the strongest… that just hurt.

It also makes one wonder: was warform actually of Honor rather than of Odium? Is the screaming of her mind similar to the screaming of the dead spren in the Shardblades? Is there still a “good” spren bonded to her, but overwhelmed by the stormspren? It seems that there ought to be a connection. On a loosely related note, I wonder if we’ll ever find out what happened to the Listeners who chose not to accept the stormspren bonding. Did they escape only to be killed by the Highstorm/Everstorm confluence? Or did they really escape? And did anyone else think it an interesting happenstance that they escaped from the Oathgate plateau, just like the Alethi armies would later?

The Everstorm
There was a lot of speculation over whether or not we’d see the Everstorm in this book. For that matter, there was a fair amount of speculation over what the Everstorm actually would be. The reality was mind-numbing. What we haven’t seen is the full effect, as it rounds the world and hits the continent backwards. The destruction to come is frightening to contemplate all by itself. What will happen next time the Everstorm collides with a Highstorm?

My final questions, to which I may never know the answers, are these: Would the Everstorm have come anyway? Was Odium returning inevitably, or did the actions of the Listeners bring about his return? Or, perhaps, were those actions inevitable?

Discuss! Enjoy! See you in the comments! [Note: please be aware that the spoilers in the comments are not limited to Words of Radiance, and include discussion of other Sanderson works. Wherever possible, we would appreciate it if you could white out any major spoilers for other books or series as a courtesy to other readers, but we cannot guarantee that every commenter will do so, so please tread carefully if you are trying to avoid information about Sanderson’s other novels/series.]


Alice Arneson is a stay-at-home mom who enjoys reading, writing, and throwing snowballs. She owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Brandon Sanderson and Peter Ahlstrom (and probably a greater one to their wives). The most amazing thing she’s ever heard was the Tudor Choir and Seattle Baroque Orchestra performance of Messiah.

About the Author

Alice Arneson

Author

Alice Arneson is a stay-at-home mom who enjoys reading, writing, and throwing snowballs. She owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Brandon Sanderson and Peter Ahlstrom (and probably a greater one to their wives). The most amazing thing she’s ever heard was the Tudor Choir and Seattle Baroque Orchestra performance of Messiah.
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tmdean
5 months ago

Slight correction to my article. It’s actually Otto Hightower who reaches out to the Triarchy in Fire & Blood, not Tyland Lannister

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Admin
5 months ago
Reply to  tmdean

We’ve updated that line–thank you!

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EFMD
5 months ago

I agree that this has, on the whole, been an excellent season (Even an improvement upon the first in many respects) and I remain convinced that this is a version of the Dance of the Dragons well worth the following for years to come.

I do, however, agree with a friend of mine who remarked that this makes an excellent episode 8, but a poor Season Finale: while it’s resolution of Prince Daemon’s Harrenhal arc and the Green King’s* character arc for this season are invaluable and very welcome, quite a bit of the rest felt as though they’d run out of scenes from Season 2 and had to smuggle in a few from Season 3 to pad the running time.

These scenes are often very good, but taken together they still constitute a deeply underwhelming finish (and in the case of Rhaenyra Targaryen’s scenes with the Dowager Queen garnish my least favourite plot arc of this season with rotten fish: Queen Alicent, despite the most excellent efforts of Ms. Olivia Cooke, has completely failed to hold onto my respect this season due to her complete failure to show the courage of her convictions and this final scene reads less as a tragic might-have-been and more as the writers trying to compensate for Rhaenyra Targaryen’s outright villainy in the last episode by showing almost every single named female character in this season very humbly acknowledge her as the Rightful Queen, no matter how little sense it makes for Queen Alicent to do so.

*For the record I’d argue that Aegon the Usurper has consistently been this season’s MVP, the true heir to Mr Paddy Considine’s King Viserys (and his depiction might even excel Mysaria of Lys in terms of constituting a magnificent improvement on what we saw from the actor in Season 1).

Ach! I’m grumpy and perhaps unfair – so it’s only right that I provide my shortlist of what one liked and disliked in this season (Having been quite impressed by how few items one wishes to place in the ‘Cons’ despite my stated reservations):

– RHAENYRA TARGARYEN: I’ve generally felt that the Black Queen (or perhaps her writing staff) has jumped from characterisation to characterisation this season, never quite resolving the tension between a character clearly set up as our protagonist, yet consistently acting as though it’s someone else’s job to win her the Iron Throne (It doesn’t help that when she does act, it’s usually as a Rogue Element and not as the head of her faction).

Coupled with the unfavourable impression I formed of the character last season, it’s left me less than enthusiastic about following the Adventures and Misadventures of the Queen on Dragonstone (Though at least the last two episodes have given me some hope they’ll finally reconcile the character’s contradictions into a Targaryen more Mad-Angry than Great, even if I also feel that getting absolutely NOTHING r.e. The Kiss when the episode sees fit to waste valuable time on Lady Rhaena wandering the Vale and – albeit more delightfully – misuses it following the Misadventures of Tyland Lannister is one of the more significant failures of the Finale.

– Speaking of THE VALE, I think that failing to use Lady Jeyne Arryn as a lens through which to show us what an actual Ruling Lady looks like in Westeros (with all the twists and turns, crabbing and plotting that involves) is a major weakness in this season: if nothing else it would have helped complete our picture of women in Westerosi politics by actually showing us what a woman who rules in her own name, no ifs or buts, can do and what she must struggle to do and what she simply cannot do.

It also bears noting that showing Lady Jeyne managing her more restive vassals as brewing tensions across the Seven Kingdoms begin to boil over would have helped explain why her forces seem to be sitting on their hands (Neither assisting with the blockade, being deployed to support Black lords in the Crownlands or helping to bring Green elements in the Riverlands to heel), as well as put Rhaenyra Targaryen’s odd passivity for much of the Season in some proper context (Since her conventional forces are not ready to hand).

Instead we get Lady Mean Girl being unkind to Lady Rhaena, showing her the door and doing nothing of any real relevance (Not to mention making Rhaenyra Targaryen look like a frivolous adolescent for failing to honour her promises to her own kinswoman, in a way that suggests a juvenile prank).

– ALICENT HIGHTOWER: If you had asked me at the end of Season One, I would have very firmly expressed my opinion tbag Alicent Hightower was by far the more admirable of the two parties at the heart of this family feud – perhaps overly fierce in defence of her children and family interests, but a loyal wife, mother and daughter who was generally a responsible actor in the service of the Seven Kingdoms.

Boy howdy did Season Two go out of its way to kill that impression: quite simply Alicent Hightower has been less loyal to her children and her faction than Lord Larys Strong (Her complete failure to block the Black Queen’s escape from King’s Landing was almost certainly treason, her last reel attempt to sell out King’s Landing strikes me as a betrayal not only of her faction and her sons but of her own convictions (In a way that serves the character far, far less well than the tragedy of Alicent Hightower, in the face of her second son’s ingratitude, deciding to double down and make herself the beating heart of her faction once more, whether in the Small Council or from the shadows).

This whole season is NOT a good look for her (Tyland Lannister is RIGHT THERE waiting to be made her ***** and she picks Sir Criston Cole as her unfriend with benefits? For shame!).

+ On the other hand, DRAGONS: has there ever been a show more richly enlivened and blessed by distinctive, engaging and memorable firedrakes?

The only possible quibble I can offer r.e. this show’s handling of the creatures is that it seems deeply odd that (After two whole seasons) we haven’t really had a clear look at Dreamfyre: given that the crucial importance of her participation (or lack of same) in the war effort is a key plot element in episode eight, her non-appearance in that episode strikes me as quite bizarre (Since actually getting a clear idea of her size and disposition would have offered invaluable context to the core dilemma of whether or not drag the Green Queen Consort into battle).

Honourable mention to ‘Hoary Old Vermithor’ for being quite possibly my platonic idea of a dragon made manifest.

+ HELAENA TARGARYEN: Speaking of which, much love for the Green Queen Consort, who continues to be a treasure far better than her brothers (and possibly her mother) deserve.

Somebody online suggested that the tapestry which opens each episode could be Helaena’s handiwork and I heartily endorse this theory.

+ TITLES: speaking of which, the opening credits for this season are a clear upgrade from Season One and I love them to pieces.

+ HARRENHAL: Is there anything more delightful than Daemon Targaryen getting a season-long comeuppance that culminates with his apparently imbibing a valuable Life Lesson, complete with two of the strongest candidates for this seasons MVP-prize winners?

Oh yes, all of this taking place in a setting that achieves Peak Gothic and then proceeds to levitate into the Grim Darkness between tbe Stars.

Honourable mention to Lord Larys for managing to make a strong showing for his House despite being safely distant from all of them, much love for Oscar ‘Kingfish’ Tully for reminding us that Westeros is a Feudal and not an Absolutist monarchy, but Alys Rivers clearly takes the prize for Best Thing to come out of Harrenhal (The Witch Queen of Mind Games we never knew we always wanted).

+ DRAGONSEEDS: The only serious challengers to House Strong for best new characters this season – allowing us a fascinating glimpse of the Men of Work’s perspective on all this aristocratic war and preparation for war, as well as the single strongest episode of this season, the Red Sowing (Not to mention diversifying the somewhat one-note Dragonstone ensemble).

I dearly, dearly hope that Season Three will confirm that Daemon Targaryen (‘Lord Flea Bottom’) knows Ulf White of old and that the latter owes him either his money or his life (Bonus points if there’s the strong suggestion that he and Hugh Hammer hate each other on first sight: Super bonus points if there’s also the suggestion that Ulf White met a much younger Viserys Targaryen and ticked him off with the tale of how Baelon the Bold put a ‘spring in the step’ of Ulf’s mother).

+ HOISE VELARYON AND COLLATERALS: For being a much needed voice of sense on the Black Council and elsewhere, as well as being Dramatic without being horrifically dysfunctional (Even if Alyn of Hull deserves to be slapped for ignoring his own brother as he claims to have started ‘alone’).

+ SIR TYLAND LANNISTER, MASTER OF SHIPS: For giving the strong impression he auditioned for YES, MINISTER and is slightly alarmed to have wound up a Lord of the Council in the Red Keep, rather than a mandarin in Whitehall.

Honourable mention to his Lord Brother for making a hilariously Extra impression despite barely being in this series.

+ MYSARIA OF LYS: Never my favourite character, but unquestionably the clearest improvement in writing and performance between the two series, which deserves to be recognised.

+ AEGON THE SECOND: Having left me with no particular impression last season, Mr Tom Glynn-Carney is my pick for MVP at the close of Season 2 – having been consistently touching and frequently entertaining, he and the writers have left me completely confident of their take on Aegon the Usurper and eager to see more from him.

One cannot say the same of their version of Rhaenyra Targaryen (Though Emma Darcy has been consistently charismatic, I’ve been left with the suspicion that they have had difficulty bridging the twists and turns of the character’s course this season, as imposed by the Writer’s Room).

+ Last, but never least, can we agree that the DOG is this series’ greatest gift to the Seven Kingdoms? Truly the hero we need, but not the hero we deserve (For how can we possibly be worthy of such a picaresque paragon of loyalty wrapped up in canine loveability? May his arc of Hugely Symbolic Pathos never conclude in a ‘bowl of brown’).

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Eugene R
5 months ago

Loved the final shots of both of our queens, Alicent gazing out at the vastness and emptiness of Fate, Rhaenyra literally “pigeon-holed” like one of the archive scrolls. And the final shot of Ser Tyland Lannister, Master of Ships, standing in the prow, racing along to a huge fight with the Sea Snake, and not looking too tuckered out from all that procreating, either! (“How many wives do you have?”) Bring on Season 3!

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5 months ago

I really liked the vision given to Daemon. I haven’t really cared for most of the show’s attempts to tie itself with its more famous predecessor, but this one was both visually compelling and served a better purpose than simply reminding viewers that they were watching a prequel (as if they hadn’t noticed the theme song).

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JuliaM
5 months ago

I agree – Tyland Lannister’s section was some much-needed lightheartedness, and the actor hit just the right notes through his scenes, particularly in his fearful ‘How many wives do you have?’. I really felt for the poor guy!

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5 months ago
Reply to  JuliaM

Poor Tyland is going to suffer death by Snu Snu.

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EFMD
5 months ago
Reply to  JuliaM

I would dearly, dearly love to see what Sir Tyland’s letter to King’s Landing describing his embassy would look like – the Green Council needs to know what’s been going on in the Triarchy. who the key players are and exactly how the mission played out but Sir Tyland is going to be so darned embarrassed by so, so much of it.

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EFMD
5 months ago

, serious question time: may I please ask how you would rank the dragons in this show, from most to least favourite?

tmdean
5 months ago
Reply to  EFMD

Oh man… in terms of general design and energy it probably goes
1. Vhagar (I’m a sucker for badass old ladies)
2. Sheepstealer
3. Moondancer
4. Vermithor
5. Silverwing
6. Caraxes
7. Meleys
8. Sunfyre
9. Seasmoke
10. Dreamfyre
11. Arrax
12. Syrax
13. Tessarion
14. Vermax
15. Stormcloud

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EFMD
5 months ago
Reply to  tmdean

, thank you for sharing your ratings!

Based on visual design, showing over the two seasons and personal whimsy, my own
current rankings are:-

1) Vermithor – BIG SMAUG ENERGY (Or put another way, he’s my platonic ideal of a Fairy Tale dragon brought to life)

2) Seasmoke – Does drama, does comedy, does action, does poetic melancholy with a side order of Symbolism, does all that and SO HANDSOME too

3) Caraxes – does not deserve to rank this high based on his showing this season, but since the Flying Noodle steals scenes every time he shows up. why shouldn’t he steal Vhagar’s rightful place on this countdown? (The heart wants what it wants!)

4) Vhagar – the most pivotal dragon in the whole series and sells those scenes like a Grand Dame of Stage & Screen with her very own personal flamethrower: loses points for being a bit too ‘kaiju’ for my taste in dragons

5) Meleys – one of the two Platonic Dragon designs in this series, a most excellent tragic hero done in by chivalric loyalty to her lady liege, loses points for being more an extension of her mistress than a character in her own right

6) Sunfyre – beautiful golden innocent cursed to be the only being in the Seven Kingdoms who loves Aegon the Second with his whole heart: he and ‘Cheese dog’ should probably form a support group for Animal Sidekicks who deserved so much better (Meleys could have made three, if only her mistress hadn’t insisted she make that second run at Vhagar)

7) Moondancer – doesn’t do much, but does it with STYLE

8) Syrax – sound design, excellent symbolism, only the very slightest hint of a personality beyond ‘Rhaenyra’s Echo’

9) Balerion the Black Dread – proof that sheer size, spot on atmosphere and an Awesome name will take you far indeed, even as a skull in a shrine (At least when your name is BALERION THE BLACK DREAD).

Or perhaps I’m jstill Catholic enough to just love a good shrine

10) Vermax – doing neither great good nor great evil, can absolutely believe that House Frey weren’t especially worried by a dragon who hasn’t shown a spark of personality since the days of the Pink Dread

11) Tessarion – living proof that Prince Daeron Targaryen is an actual person who actually exists and is not a hoax perpetrated by House Hightower for reasons of Strategic Deception (Also, I do love a blue dragon)

12) Stormcloud – BABY DRAGON! How could I possibly rank such an adorable nonentity lower than Schroedinger’s dragon and those dragons who actually offended my sensibilities?

13) Tyraxes – The Daeron Targaryen of dragons, except that for this one it’s still Season 1 (Also known as ‘Sir Not Appearing of Erehwon’)

14) Sheepstealer – condemned to the bottom of this list by eating up time that could have more usefully been given to the next dragon on this list (Escapes a lower ranking because I had no hopes of this particular dragon for them to disappoint)

15) Dreamfyre – having made a memorable first appearance indicating that Prince Aemond had better make himself scarce or be made into barbecue, becomes a key element of the plot in Season 2’s finale and yet completely fails to make an appearance, cheating us of our chance to find out whether or not she still gives zero ***** for our beloved Prince Regent (and also a valuable opportunity to finally get a proper look at the reigning Queen of the Dragonpit)

16) Arrax – You had ONE job and you took a shot at VHAGAR?!? If Great granny Monster hadn’t chomped you, Rhaenyra Targaryen would have strangled you with her own fair hands!

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EFMD
5 months ago
Reply to  EFMD

NOTE: I am, of course, referring to literal dragons, not metaphorical ones.

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5 months ago

In today’s TV landscape shows have to be great right away in s01 and shows are also shorter. In dealing with these restrictions, I feel like the thing that usually gets left behind on the cutting room floor is the proper setup for narrative and character development to actually land, to feel earned and resonate with the viewer. Having these feelings, I, obviously, loved this episode, loved this season, love in general what HotD is doing. 

Also, Tyler, your pieces of each episodes are incredible! They beautifully enrich the experience of watching HotD. Thank you!

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5 months ago
Reply to  rmendes42

I have been watching Babylon 5 for the first time at the same time as I’m doing a rewatch of Person of Interest and it really stands out how much room there is for proper narrative when you have 22 42-45 minute long episodes. The writers have room for side stories that develop the characters and room to carefully lay the ground for later plot.

I also think that a common problem with current TV writers is that they remember certain moments from past shows that had incredible emotional weight (a betrayal, a character’s death, a heroic moment) and want to replicate that but don’t remember the amount of effort the show’s writers did to build to these moments. This is why we get shows that start doing something like a mole/betrayal plot in their 3rd episode when we barely know the characters and it will hardly matter if one is a traitor. That’s a season 3 plot, not an episode 3 plot.

Fortunately, HotD’s writers seem to have a really good sense of what they want to present to the user. I joked that they looked at the last 2 seasons of GoT and basically said, “That is a lesson in what not to do.” Although, I did question how quickly Rhaenyra seemed to get to Harrenhal. If it was that easy, why didn’t she send Jacaerys or Baela there to check on what Daemon was doing?

It seemed that lesson was also learned by the cinematographers, because I’ve been in awe at how beautifully shot this season has been. And everything is clear! I remember the Battle of Rook’s Rest and how easy it was to understand what was happening, even in the chaos of dragon fighting. Contrast that with the Night King’s attack on Winterfell and what a mess that was.

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5 months ago
Reply to  FSkornia

Completely agree on this, The shorter seasons don’t let you have a fun episode that doesn’t directly advance the plot. One of my favorite B5 episodes if the Day of the Dead, and in an 8 episode season I doubt that would get made.

One of the things that I really love about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is how they’ve mainly ditched having a season long arc in favor of standalone episodes. This allows for so many more fun adventures with body swapping, fairy tales, and time travel without having to worry about where it fits in with a larger narrative.

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5 months ago

Really appreciate your in-depth write-ups. They really enhance the show and point out details I didn’t pick up. Part of that is because I have yet to read Fire & Blood. With GoT, I had already read all four of the books that GRRM had put out before the show, so I knew what was coming. It made following that show fun in a lot of ways (I really enjoyed the reactions to Ned Stark’s fate and the Red Wedding–perhaps while cackling with evil glee) but it also occasionally led to frustration as the writers deviated from the source material and/or cut characters or storylines I was looking forward to seeing on screen.

Since I never got around to reading F&B when it first came out, I made the decision–when HotD was announced–to wait until the show finished before doing so, which has led to the opposite experience that I had while watching GoT. While I know some of what happens in this story, it’s mostly just the broad strokes while knowing little about the fine details. I had little to no expectations going into this and so I have hardly anything to be disappointed by, so I’ve been able to just watch and enjoy the story that the show is trying to tell while being more relaxed about it than I was with GoT. It’s honestly been refreshing.

That being said, while I did enjoy this episode overall, it really felt to me like Condal and his team got word rather late in the writing process that they would only have eight episodes to work with, rather than ten, and so had to trim things down and perhaps delay things they might have planned to tell this season until season 3 instead.

For that reason, I’m a little disappointed that we’re going to have to wait two years essentially in a holding pattern to see how everything unfolds from here. But at least we’ll have season 1 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms next year to tide us over until then. (And I certainly hope that you’ll continue these wonderful write-ups for that show, too!)

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5 months ago

Episode 8 was good, but not as a finale where we will not see the next season for another 2 years. They should have combined episodes 6 and 7 and used episode 8 as the penultimate episode. Then we could have had the finale have the battle (or battles) the show is leading up to.

I think this entire season was a miss due to the pacing and lack of a big season ending. For me, am unsatisfying season.

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Torsten Nelson
5 months ago

This is an incredible analysis of the episode and the season. Thank you.